


Morphine

by kyballs



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Child Murder, Death, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Serial Killer, Triggers, cook!haru, detective!rin, detective!sousuke, surgeon!makoto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 25,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2308877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyballs/pseuds/kyballs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tachibana Makoto is a young surgeon who can't handle loosing someone on his table. His ways of coping with loses is found out by his roommate/best friend's boyfriend's best friend/partner when he drops by to pick something up.</p><p> </p><p>continuing</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Found out

**Author's Note:**

> first Free! fic  
> enjoy

Makoto was driving home with tears slightly blurring his vision. He lost another person today.

It was a little boy too.

The same exact thing happened about 3 months ago, exactly the same.

There was a serial killer in Iwatobi that was obvious. Another little boy that looked like the one that he lost today, also 9 years old, had been stabbed to near death 2 months, 1 week, and 4 days ago. There were others, 3, excluding the 2 he had tried so hardly to save, who had been found dead.

Makoto's heart hurt for the poor young souls and their grieving parents whom he had to painfully tell them had died.

It always hurt, no matter how old the patient was, he was normally successful in saving people. He wondered why he got into doing this when he knew that he would have to experience this sort of thing.

It was 1:35 AM when he parked his car. He knew that Haru was away with Rin for the weekend so he wasted no time going into his shared flat with Haru. He would normally cry in the car, not wanting to be bothered by Haru about what had happened.

He struggled getting the key into the lock as he remembered the faces of the parents whom he had to inform were no longer so.

He felt hot tears fall to his hand as he finally turned the lock.  He shut the door behind him and lent back onto the door, bringing his hands up to his eyes. He tried in vain to wipe the tears away or at least try to get himself to stop.

He let out a strangled cry and threw his keys to the ground and kicked the nearest object. It was totally out of character for him but he couldn't stand that he  had let another child die.

He wrestled his jacket from his body and threw it to the ground with his car keys.

He sobbed and pulled on his hair, trying to keep his volume down.

He wrung his sleeves up to his elbows and trudged to the bathroom while holding back sobs. He bent down to the cabinets under the sink and fumbled with the objects that cluttered the small compartment. 

 _'Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?"_ Makoto repeated in his head until he found the desired item.

It was warped in some sort of bloodstained paper and sealed with a small piece of tape. Makoto struggled to open in it.

He finally pulled out a clean razor blade, he looked towards his wrist.

When he was younger he had been messing around climbing a tree when he fell. He cut his wrist open somewhere on the was down and it had left a nasty scar.

He had always done this when  **it** happened. He only cut along and pre-existing scars, which he had plenty of from his childhood. 

He felt the cool metal against his overheated skin, he sobbed and then sighed, applying pressure to the blade. He watched with swollen eyes as the first drop if red liquid dripped onto his scrubs.

* * *

 

Yamazaki Sousuke was getting fed up with Rin borrowing his things and the leaving them at Nanase's flat. It hadn't taken him long to notice Rin borrowed his juicer-his fucking juicer of all things-and left it at Nanase's.

Rin had a spare key to Nanase's flat at their place so he borrowed it to drop in and get his goddamn juicer back. He knew Nanase shared with his friend Tachibana Makoto, a surgeon, who may or may not be home yet due to his occupation. 

They had only interacted one or twice but Tachibana was a good guy. Around his age, 27-28, he wouldn't really mind running into him though.

He walked up to the door and unlocked it, he looked down at the jacket and keys thrown on the floor. His eyes widened at the lamp and other items on the floor.

Makoto wasn't a violent person, so he wouldn't have done this. Sousuke pulled his gun out from under his jacket and his eyes narrowed. It didn't look like much of a struggle but god only knows what the hell can happen.  He cleared the kitchen, his juicer was there by the way, and the a bedroom. He hastily readied himself to open the bathroom door when he heard a pained groan.

_'Tachibana?'_

He opened the door and his gun dropped.

_'What?'_

* * *

 

"T-tachibana?"

Makoto froze, he knew that voice. He tried in vain to cover his arms, the damage was done.

"Ya-mazaki, I-"

"Tachibana what the fuck are you doing?" Sousuke yelled to him, he tried to hide the razor. Sousuke shocked homself  by yelling at Tachibana but, what the hell? Tachibana? Of all the people, Tachibana was harming himself?

Makoto panicked trying to find an excuse when Sousuke wrapped his hand around his bleeding cut, becoming stained with red.

Sousuke had done this to himself when his dreams of swimming were tarnished with a hideous shoulder injury when he had reached his peak. But Makoto? Why?

"Why are you doing this to yourself Tachibana?"

"I-I..." How could Nanase not see that his best friend was doing this?

"Don't worry about it." Tachibana sounded absolutely broken, he sounded like he did in high school.

"No." was Sousuke's simple reply.

"What?" Makoto responded with widening eyes, Sousuke brought Makoto's wrist up to his mouth, replacing his hand with his lips. "S-stop, Yamazaki." Makoto tried weakly.

"No, you need to stop." Sousuke stated, taking the bloody razor from Makoto's fingers. Makoto bite his lip before speaking. 

"Why do you-" Sousuke removed his leather jacket and bared his wrist to Makoto. 

"I won't tell." Sousuke said snapping Makoto out of his trance.

"Yamazaki..."

"Sousuke." he corrected, "And I won't tell, so long as you stop and come to me if you ever fell like doing this to yourself again."

Sousuke brought Makoto's forehead to his own.

"Promise me, promise  me that you will come to me."

"Yama-"

"Sousuke."

"S-sousuke, you don't-"

"I'm sleeping on the couch and throwing this out. If you want to talk to me I'll be on the couch, don't you dare hesitate to wake me if you need to."

With that Sousuke grabbed a washcloth from the counter and put it to Makoto's slowly bleeding wrist. Makoto didn't even blink as he watched Sousuke put his gun back into the holster under his arm and pick up his jacket from behind him.

He stood and pulled Makoto up into himself, hugging him. Makoto felt tears burn at the corners of his eyes once again.

Sousuke drug Makoto into his room and laid him down on  the bed. He sat down next o him and kept pressure on Makoto's self inflicted wound.

Makoto put an arm over his eye's and cried quietly.

"I'll be on the couch." Sousuke said as he got up and left the room.

Makoto followed him out after about a minute and sat down next to him. He didn't know what to say really.

"I hurt my shoulder. I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer. I was on a good track and I over worked myself, I couldn't handle it." Makoto looked down.

"I do it when i lose someone." He felt Sousuke's hand grab his that was resting on the couch. He felt a reassuring squeeze, one that says 'hey, i'm here, i care' so he continued. "He was 9, stabbed to death." He was about to break down and Sousuke hugged him.

Makoto began crying in Sousuke's arms and Sousuke leaned back against the couch, lying down with him. 

"His-his parents, oh my god."

"Shh, you don't have to."

Makoto proceeded to fall asleep in Sousuke's arms, who remained awake.

Sousuke usually tried to stay out of peoples lives as much as possible, but seeing Tachibana in the state he was in hit him harder than he ever would have expected. Probably because he never expected he would see Tachibana in such a state. 

He Picked Makoto up and put him down in his own bed,  Makoto had a steeled grip on his shirt but he pried himself away and went back to the couch. He took his holsters off and thought to himself.

"This all started with a goddamn juicer." he said aloud and laid down on the couch, he wasn't getting any sleep, that much he knew.

 


	2. Come to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Makoto wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quite a bit of side-rinharu in this chapter

Sousuke didn't sleep at all. He laid awake on the couch pondering how long Makoto had been doing this to himself. 

He himself hadn't really done a great job covering the scars and cut when he was young so his parents had found him out.

Makoto woke around 5:30 to his alarm. He began to think he was just having a nightmare that Haru's boyfriend's best friend had found him out. He was a bit flustered that he had fallen asleep in Yamazaki's arms in said bad dream.

He realized it wasn't a dream when he looked down to see he was still in yesterdays scrubs, he prayed that Yamazaki had left already even though he had a relatively strong feeling that he was still on the couch. He changed his scrubs and anxiously made his way to the living room portion of the flat. He saw the back of Yamazaki's head and neck and held his breath for a couple of seconds. He let out a sharp exhale and gathered up courage to speak to Yamazaki. 

Makoto begrudgingly walked towards the couch and halted as the floor board creaked. Sousuke's head turned to Makoto and tired aqua eyes met puffy green.

"Yamazaki-"

"Sousuke."

"S-sousuke, did you sleep at all?"

"No, but that's not what's important."

"Yes it is!" Makoto reprimanded, "That's not healthy at all!"

"Neither is harming yourself, Tachibana."

"But!"

"No buts Tachibana!"

"A-at least call me Makoto." he tried weakly.

"Alright. Then come to me, Makoto. Okay? If you lose anyone again." Makoto looked down without answering Sousuke, he figured he could he could skip breakfast, he wasn't feeling hungry anyway. "Do you understand me? Instead of going to the bathroom with a blade when you're done your shift you go to me, or I will tell Nanase."

"Okay." Makoto's answer was weak and shaky, he was on the  verge of crying again. Sousuke took note of this and rested his hand on Makoto's shoulder. It took him by surprise when Makoto latched onto him with a tight embrace. "Okay." Makoto's answer came again.

As the shocked look left Sousuke's features, he wrapped his arms around  Makoto lightly and rubbed his back.

Makoto's pain broke the heart he didn't think he had much of.

"What time does your shift start?" Sousuke's voice broke through the silence of the flat

"Soon." Makoto's grip on Sousuke grew lax and he let a shaky breath out. Sousuke grabbed the slightly shorter man by the shoulders and held him at a distance. He looked into his eyes and wiped Makoto's tears away with a hand he had just removed from his shoulder. He smiled and stood up, holding a hand out for Makoto.

"Rin and Nanase should be getting back soon so I better get home, Rin will think I'm sleeping with someone if he's home first." Sousuke said as he bent over to grab his holsters from the ground. He was completely serious about Rin too, last time he and Nanase  he spent a weekend together and he stayed the night at Kisumi's, Rin had bugged him about it until he ran into Kisumi about a week later who verified that Sousuke was in fact there the night before.

"Okay. I'll see you Sousuke."

"Likewise Makoto." Sousuke put his jacket on and left, he left the juicer there as an excuse to check up on Makoto later. He drove home wondering why he had decided to drop by so late in the first place.

* * *

Makoto ate a banana and then went to work he wondered why Sousuke had been at his house in the first place, as far as he knew he didn't really like Haru that much.

Haru and Rin had met on a case, someone had attempted to kill Haru for some reason Makoto couldn't for the life of him remember, it had something to do with the fact that Haru was very high up in the food industry. That aside, Rin was assigned to Haru to make sure the man who had attempted to kill him succeeded in a second try, therefore Sousuke had been indirectly assigned to him as well as he and Rin are partners. Sousuke claimed that Haru distracted Rin from the job a lot and he had a lot more 'un-needed empathy' during cases for those with significant others involved.

He seemed to have a general liking towards Makoto himself, but that was no reason to be at his house at 2 in the morning. The only time people came to others houses at that early was for... Makoto couldn't finish the thought.

A... a booty call? No, no way. They had barely had more than a couple conversations, and Sousuke didn't seem like the type for that. Which led Makoto back to his original question.

_'Why was Sousuke at my house at 2 AM?'_

Before he could ponder it more there was a knock on the door to his office. 

"Tachibana-san, Hazuki-san is prepped and ready for you now." A nurse said pushing up his red brimmed glasses.

"Thank you, Ryugazaki-san, you can take him to his room when he's done. It should be about 1 hour." 

Makoto worked  in the emergency room after noon, this early in the morning and earlier it was patients with prior appointments.

Hazuki Nagisa was a man only a little bit younger than himself who needed his appendix removed, nice and easy, especially compared to last night.

* * *

Sousuke himself had to work on the little boys case whom Makoto had failed to save last night. He had gotten the call shortly after he arrived home. Rin arrived to their house about 3 minutes after Sousuke did, much to his own relief.

He had a giddy looking expression, meaning he and Nanase had done it at least once last night, but was quickly shut down from Sousuke's somber expression.

"What is it?" 

"Another kid." Rin's face dropped, "They want us to come in now."

"Alright. So did you do anything while I was gone."

"No. You left my fucking juicer at Nanase's."

"Oh- um sorry. I''l get it later."

"No, I'll get it. God knows you won't remember."

"Ouch Sousuke,you must have had a sour date last night that you aren't telling me about."

They we're given the details of what was found at the crime scene and lab reports of any substances found at the scene. There was also a man that was found dead about 20 feet away from the kids stabbing. He had been shot in the throat and was pronounced dead when the kid was found.

"Makoto tried to save the kid? God, I can't imagine how he felt." Sousuke cringed at Rin's words, he knew what Makoto had felt. Hell.

"We should go to the parents and ask the regular questions."

They got nothing from the parents, they were staying in a hotel and they're kid must have decided he wanted something from the convenience store across the street, due to the bag found at the crime scene.

Sousuke was a psychology and criminology major in college and he was working out a psychological profile of the killer, the Americans generally did this, Sousuke had learned when he went to college there, they even had a popular show based on it called Criminal Minds.

The killings had been occurring closer and closer together so he had assumed the killer was devolving as the killings had been becoming less planned out and sloppier. He was getting more dangerous as it was obviously him who shot and killed a man who was calling the cops due to the incomplete phone number being typed on the screen.

"Ne, Sousuke?"

"Yes Rin?"

"Would you hate me if I asked Haru to move in with me?"

"Just let me find a new place first and then you can do whatever the hell you want."

"Uh- I kind of already asked him." he scratched the back of his neck and laughed sheepinshly

"What the hell is wrong with you, huh?" Sousuke was tempted to murder Rin right then and there but since then and there was with nobody else around inside the police department, he refrained.

"Hehhehheh, sorry?"

"He can move in as soon as I'm out alright? I am not listening to you two share your love, it's not happening."

"Okay, okay, Haru should be telling Makoto when he gets back from the hospital."

"That's around 1 AM moron."

"Oh?" Sousuke heard Rin's unspoken 'and how do you know that lover boy?' and ignored it and left to get a soda from a nearby vending machine. Rin followed  him anyway.

"I'm going to go ask Makoto about the kid, I'll-"

"No, I'll go." Rin raised an eyebrow at Sousuke's urgency to check on Makoto, "you can stay here and do all the goddamn paperwork since you feel the need to invite people to live with us, shithead." Rin decided not to argue.

* * *

Sousuke arrived at the hospital half an hour later and asked the front desk to see Tachibana Makoto while flashing his badge.

"He's finishing his last scheduled surgery now, I will let him know that you're here for him. Just questioning?"

"Yes. Thanks." The lady from behind the desk had gotten hi about 15 minutes later to take him to Makoto's office.

She knocked on the door and told Makoto that the detective was here.

"Hi, sorry for the- Sousuke?"

"Hi Makoto."

"So you need to ask about the boy?" he asked and shortly after dismissed the woman from the front desk.

"Yeah," Sousuke began asking routine questions and Makoto answered accordingly.

"Not to be rude but, um, why were you at my house so early this morning?"

"Rin took my juicer and left it there."

"So that's yours? Hm, I was wondering where it came from."

"Has Nanase called you yet?"

"Wh-what do you mean? You didn't tell him did you?" a panicked look arose on his face.

"No, no, no, Rin just informed me of Nanase's new living arrangements is all."

"New living arrangements?"

"Rin asked Nanase to move in with him this weekend, which he just happened to forget means moving in with me also."

Makoto was stifling a laugh and Sousuke glowered. "What did you have to say about that?"

"That it's fine and he has to wait until i'm out first. It'll be pretty hard to find a new house on such a short notice."

"M-move in with me! If your alright with that i mean."

"Are you joking?" Sousuke said, later trying to decide if he sounded rude or not.

"N-o, I' not."

"God you're a life saver! Literally too. I would've had to listen to Rin whine about wanting 'his Nanase' for quite some time."

"No problem." Makoto said smiling, Sousuke felt his heart flutter a bit.

"I'll come by and get that juicer later, yeah? Gods, thanks Makoto." Sousuke said opening the door.

"It's my pleasure." he had never really seen Sousuke look anything but grumpy, save for this morning when he saw him angry and upset. He liked Sousuke's smile.

* * *

 

Makoto got home later around 12:30, when his shift actually ended including the drive back, the only emergency surgery being around 4:30. He opened the door to Haru making mackerel.

"Hi Haru, how was your weekend?"

"Great." the short reply came. "I need to talk to you about something for a minute come here."

"Moving in with Rin?"

"How did you know that?"

"Sousuke."

"Yamazaki? Since when do you call him Sousuke?"

"Yes Yamazaki. He's moving in. You two are basically trading places." Makoto smiled.

"When did you talk to Yamazaki? Since when do you call him Sousuke?" Haru asked again.

"He came by about a case, and brought up that Rin asked you to move in with him."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

"But when did you start calling him Sousuke?" Haru asked for a 3rd time, clearly unhappy that his question wasn't answered. As if on a cue, the doorbell rang and Makoto opened the door to Sousuke himself.

"Hi Makoto, stopped  by to get my damn juicer." Sousuke was back to being a grump again.

"Yeah sure Sousuke, same place it was this morning." Makoto smiled.

"This morning?" Haru questioned.

"Alright thanks Makoto, I'll go now. Nanase." Sousuke gave a curt goodbye.

"What happened when we were gone?" Haru asked.

"We just figured we would go do something together." Makoto lied and laughed while retreating to get in the shower.

"Weird." Haru said going back to his mackerel. His was just happy that he and Rin would be living together soon.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i tend to update extremely fast or extremely slow so bare with me ahaha


	3. Moving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke's psychology major gets him a case, the case actually. Sousuke finally moves in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took forever, ive been so focused on my sports and they finally gave us a saturday off.  
> I also broke my finger yesterday but that's not stopping me from getting this chapter done

Makoto woke up at 4:30 AM and groaned. Sometimes he really hated getting up so damn early. He grabbed his glasses from the night stand and put them on after standing from his bed. He wondered when Haru and Sousuke were swapping places.

He was getting tired of keeping he and Sousuke's strange relationship a secret from Haru. He knew how angry Haru would be at him if he found out about all the cuts.

Makoto began making pancakes for himself. Milk, eggs, butter, bananas, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Makoto only liked banana pancakes.

It was when he finished the mix that he saw a note where Sousuke's juicer used to stand.

_745-555-0125_

_call me if you need anything_

_-Sousuke._

Makoto smiled to himself, he felt a strange feeling-was it pride? That's what he thought-that Sousuke  he had said Sousuke cared about him so much.

"Makoto, what are you doing?" he turned  to see Haru standing in the living room, the dim light from the kitchen only catching part of  him.

"Making myself breakfast. Go back to sleep, you don't have to be up until 8."

"Are you okay with having Yamazaki as a roommate?"

"He's a cop, I'll be safe. I know you two don't really like each other, but I like him and he likes me so it's all okay."

"Oh yeah, if forgot that you two are now mysteriously on a first name basis after that weekend. Are you sure there isn't anything you left out?"

"Are you suggesting that we did more than just spend time with each other?"

"Yes I'm suggesting that you guys are sleeping together."

"Haru! Of course we aren't. Not that Sousuke isn't attractive, wait what? Ahhahahaha!" Makoto was laughing awkwardly as if it would cover up the fact that he admitted that he found Sousuke attractive. He was glad it wasn't Rin he had said it to. He insisted on 'best friend of my boyfriend' bonding time so Makoto knew he would probably slip less than subtle hints to Sousuke that Makoto felt that way.

"Alright. I'm moving my stuff in today and Yamazaki coming by whenever he can to move his stuff in. I'll leave my key under the doormat when I'm all finished."

"Okay, now just go back to sleep."

"Yeah I will."

Makoto relived  that awkward moment a couple times before letting out a deep breath.

He poured the last of the pancake mix into the pan after removing the pancake he had burnt in the process of talking to Haru.

He had to get groceries quickly and be at the hospital by 5:30.

He wondered to himself why the Hazuki patient had requested to have Ryugazaki as his nurse for the rest of his stay, as he flipped through his papers at the table.

* * *

 

Sousuke woke up to Rin on a phone call with what he guess to be their boss.

"Another? Are you kidding me? He's taking less and less time, it's only been a couple of days!"

He could tell they were talking about the child killer.

"He's devolving." Sousuke stated curtly, he wondered if Makoto was going to have to lose another child on the table soon.

"What Sousuke? What does that mean? No, Sousuke said that he's de-evolving?"

"Devolving."

"Yeah devolving, that. Okay... sure thing. Sousuke, he wants to talk to you." Sousuke took the phone from Rin's had and put it to his ear.

"Yes, Kisumi?"

"What is this 'devolving' thing that your talking about?"

"His killings show his psyche, he's mentally ill in some respect which is causing him to kill children that look the same."

"Can you find him through this?"

"Essentially, yes."

"Alright, due to the failure of the previous detectives on this case, it's your's and Rin's now."

"Okay, I need to see if these kids have any common denominators that the murderer could have found them through."

"On it now, what do you think is wrong with him?"

"I don't have the details of the case yet so I can't get an accurate psych profile on him yet."

"Okay, be here ASAP and I can give you all the evidence."

"Copy, we're on our way."

At least Sousuke's major was finally getting him somewhere.

"What does Kisumi want?"

"It's our case now. We need to find this guy quickly."

"Right, you should probably put pants on before we go though."

"No shit Rin."

They were at the office within 15 minutes. Mikoshiba Momotaro had given Sousuke and Rin the files they needed almost as soon as they had walked through the doors.

Kisumi walked into Sousuke and Rin's office to see a confused Rin and Sousuke mulling over something.

"You got anything Sousuke?"

"Yeah, these are stabbings, which represent a sort of sexual desire from the killer. All these kids look damn near exactly the same so it's possible that the children resemble a past love or obsession."

"And the shoe print found in the alley shows that the murderer is a male with a size 13 shoe that is about an inch and a half too large." Rin chimed in, feeling a bit stupid after Sousuke's previous statement.

"Good, good. Backgrounds on the children are being run right now to see if they have any connection. Sousuke, I want you to go to the alley near the hospital. Rin, your going with Nitori to debrief the children at near by schools, buddy system, curfew, all of that. Go now."

* * *

 

It was around 11:30 when Sousuke finished up at the crime scene by the hospital. 

The victims knew the attacker, there was no sign of struggle, it was most likely a male, from the trajectory of the stabs this man was short, about 5'5" or so. He may not have use of sex organs as he had used stabbing  as a means of sexual sadism.

As Sousuke was considering where the kids could have known the attacker from he ran into someone.

"Oh, Sousuke? What are you doing here?"

"Um, crime scene, they gave Rin and I the children's case."

"Oh." Makoto's face had dropped, obviously thinking of the kid he failed to save.

"Makoto, we will find him. He won't lay a hand on another kid, I promise you."

"Sousuke, I-thank you." Makoto said staring at his feet. "H-haru said that you were bringing your stuff over today?"

"Oh uh, yeah, if I have the time. I probably will since I'm not stuck with desk work all day."

"Haru is probably already done putting everything in your house knowing him. He said he would leave his house key under the mat when he was done."

"Okay, I'll stop by later and check, I need to get back to the office right now. I'll see you tonight yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll see you." Makoto walked back into the hospital and Sousuke continued to his car, he was going to stop by his house and put his stuff in the trunk. There was a small scale robbery that took place a few blocks down and he was the first to respond, it went sooth though, he wouldn't even have to use his gun. His taser had a bit of a work out though.

He walked into Kisumi's office and reported what he got from the crime scene. He had gotten back the reports that showed the kids backgrounds. 

They had gone to the same school, it only lowered the suspect pool to the men inside the school.

Kisumi had other officers check the stats of the school's male employees so Sousuke could move his stuff to Makoto's house.

* * *

Makoto walked through the door at around 12:30 AM, he was exhausted. He heard a banging in Haru's room and a deep voice curse. It looked like Sousuke had officially moved in.

"Sousuke?" Makoto called for him.

"Uh yeah, in here. I would have called or left a message, a text or whatever but you haven't texted me yet."

"Right, sorry."

"So what is the rent  and how do we split it?" Sousuke asked walking into the living area. Makoto smiled at Sousuke who may or may not have felt his heart flutter at that moment.

Makoto was going to enjoy having Sousuke as a roommate and vice versa.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed, I'm really sorry for the wait guys. The third chapter is usually when my writer's block hits also.


	4. Friendly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke and Makoto get a bit friendlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow quick update

Sousuke and Makoto both woke up at 5:00 AM the following morning, Sousuke was unsure of whether or not Makoto was up or even at their flat so he exited his room in only his boxers. He ran straight into Makoto who was also exiting his room half asleep.

Sousuke had toppled over with Makoto following, grabbing onto Sousuke's chest as they fell.

Makoto's glasses had fallen off and smacked Sousuke in the face just as they hit the ground. Makoto realized what happened and the minimum amount of clothing Sousuke adorned at the moment and blushed to his ears.

"Sorry Sousuke." He said burring his face in Sousuke's bare chest, turning a fuchsia color at the contact, he only wanted to hide his face from Sousuke but he had just made himself 10 times worse. 

"It's alright, I didn't know if you were awake or at work or not. I wasn't paying much attention." Sousuke grabbed Makoto's glasses and craned his neck to see the top of Makoto's head. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine." Makoto pushed himself and caught himself staring at Sousuke's abdomen, there were a lot of scars.

"Stabbed there, shot here, here, and here." Sousuke pointed to the most noticeable scars. None of the were in any of his vital points but were very painful injuries nonetheless.

"Wow." Makoto pronounced before reaching out to ouch them. He realized that he was sitting on top of Sousuke's lap and touching his stomach, a bad position to be found in. "Oh my gosh I'm sorry!" he yelled after discovering that he wouldn't mind roaming the rest of Sousuke's muscular body.

"It's, um it's alright." Sousuke said, not minding having Makoto touch him like that, like not minding a little too much that he could have potentially gotten hard for his roommate of 1 day if he continued. Talk about ruining a relationship.

Makoto tried to keep his eyes on Sousuke's face after he handed him his glasses but he was having a hard time.

"What time do you have work?" Makoto asked.

"6:30 but I'm going at 6. I want to catch this sicko as soon as I can."

"Oh. I have to go at 6 also."

"Hey, are you feeling better?" Makoto's shoulder felt like it had caught fire when Sousuke put his hand there. In fear of his voice cracking he just nodded rapidly."f you ever have a bad day just tell me alright?" he was met with Makoto nodding rapidly again.

Makoto couldn't believe himself, did he have a, a schoolboy crush on Sousuke? No way right? He'd never felt like this around him before, but then again he had never really been around him much before.

"I'm going to put some pants on now, or just clothes would be better." Sousuke said turning back into his room. Makoto disagreed with him internally though, he would have liked to look at Sousuke more. He enjoyed the backside view though.

Makoto walked to the kitchen and tried to get an explicit image of Sousuke out of his head. He grabbed a yogurt from the fridge, skipping the banana today. Makoto didn't know how he managed to fall for a guy within a matter of days.

Sousuke walked out of his room in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and his holsters around his shoulders, brown leather jacket in his hands. Makoto thought he had broad shoulders but Sousuke's were wider by a bit. He really needed to sop staring.

"What time is your shift over?" Sousuke asked randomly.

"I get off early, tonight, there's another doctor in to cover the emergency shift. I'm done at 9 PM. Why?"

"I can drop you off and pick you up then?"

"I'm done once I get all my information on the case together. We could get dinner or have a drink or something."

"Um, yeah I'd like that." Makoto smiled, Sousuke definitely felt his heart skip a beat.

* * *

"Mikoshiba." Sousuke called in the loud office for his redheaded underling.

"Yes Yamazaki-san?"

"Could you get the suspect's approximate height and weight from the footprint?"

"Uh, yeah we did. About 5'6" and 133 lbs., Nitori and I checked the school's male employees and there are 5 men that are 5'6"."

"Alright, the man is probably weak as he is attacking children rather than adults or teenagers. I don't believe that pedophilia  has anything to do with this,hopefully we don't have to wait for another kid to figure out who this is."

"Wow Sousuke, could you profile me?" Rin called from his ow desk, working on connecting the children to one employee at the school.

"No." he answered curtly. He walked into Kisumi's office.

"What's going on Sousuke?"

"Can I have tomorrow off? If anything comes in on the suspect I'll be in as soon as possible, I swear." Tomorrow was Sunday and he knew Makoto had Sunday's off somehow. Whether he saw his schedule on the fridge somewhere this morning or Rin had told him sometime i the past, he knew Makoto didn't work.

"Sure thing."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you've gotten more of this case done than anyone  else has in the past month."

"Thanks Kisumi."

Sousuke picked up a patrol shift as his profile of the man was complete and there wasn't anymore he could do as Rin was trying to find the employee that was connected  to all 3 children.

After his patrol shift was over at 9, Sousuke drove to the hospital to pick Makoto up.

"Hi Sousuke." Makoto said as he entered the car, "Where are we going?" 

"You look like you could use a drink, huh? I can get away with one or two and still be sober."

"What a mind reader." Makoto stated and he exhaled deeply.

Sousuke had a cup of hot sake while Makoto had a couple rounds of vodka shots. When a blush grew on Makoto's face due to the alcohol Sousuke drug Makoto into the car.

Sousuke tried not laugh at Makoto's continuous staring at him.

"Is there something on my face Makoto?" Sousuke asked once he got Makoto inside their flat

"You're hot." Makoto looked him directly in the eye and attempted to kiss Sousuke. Sousuke had pushed him gently away. "You hate me." Makoto stated looking extremely upset. Sousuke guessed that Makoto was the type of drunk to act on every feeling they had, small or not.

"No I do not, Makoto. I'm not going to take advantage of you while you're drunk."

"Would you get in bed with me?"

"Makoto,"

"Not like that, Sou-chan~"

Sousuke honestly didn't expect Makoto to be so flirtatious with him when drunk. He didn't eve expect Makoto to ever be flirtatious with him, Makoto was out of his league.

"If you'll go to sleep then yes."

"I promise~" Sousuke mulled this over.

"Alright, c'mon."  he pulled Makoto's hand into his room.

"Help me change." Makoto whined. Sousuke complied and ignored Makoto stroking his hair.

Once Sousuke got Makoto into bed he felt Makoto yank his arm. "You promised." Makoto called to Sousuke and pulled him towards himself.

"Alright Makoto, alright." Sousuke claimed, getting into Makoto's own bed.

* * *

 Makoto woke up with a headache on Sunday morning. he blinked a couple times at the feeling of Sousuke holding him.

"You're up? Nothing happened Makoto don't worry. You just told be I was hot and tried to get me to sleep with you."

"Wh-what? I- I did not, did I?"

"You did but there's no hard feelings at all."

"Oh my god. What time is it anyway?"

"9 AM."

"Okay I have off today."

"So do I, so why don't we go do something? Yeah?"

"Y-yeah." Makoto was still feeling awkward about apparently forcing himself onto Sousuke. He couldn't believe he actually did that. Sousuke blamed it on him being drunk but that wasn't entirely true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're going on a 'date' next chapter


	5. 'date'? not really.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I guess this could be considered 'a date', in most people's book it was. Not Sousuke's though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woohoo new chapter

Makoto was  still feeling extremely terrible about his being an 'over-sexual drunk' as Haru had put it once before. He was trying to keep a considerable distance from Sousuke ad they walked down to the grocery store a couple blocks down, but the streets were unusually crowded, there was a winter festival taking place soon so a lot of foreigners and locals were preparing for it. They were nearly touching and Makoto felt was blood rushing to his cheeks.

To keep his mind off of it, he thought of how Haru was settling in with Rin. They were probably sill in bed now that he thought of it.

Sousuke opened his mouth to say something to break the silence as a kid ran into Makoto.

Makoto was shoved into Sousuke who in turn was shoved into a light post. The kids mother apologized and continued chasing after him. Sousuke cringed at the impact taken on his bad shoulder, the one that ended his swimming career. Makoto saw the almost unnoticeable flash of pain dance across Sousuke's face.

"Are you okay?"

"Old injuries die hard I guess. There's the store, c'mon." Sousuke grabbed Makoto's hand and guided him to the door. He was still sour about his shoulder, he didn't like to talk about it much, even  the brief mention to Makoto just now was the most he had talked about it in a year or so. 

Makoto grabbed stuff according to what Sousuke claimed he could cook or liked. Makoto explained to him that he was a terrible cook and that was one of the main reasons he had stayed with Nanase for so long. Rin was a horrible cook/baker, basically he was terrible with anything that had to do with food, so Sousuke learned how to cook so his taste buds and stomach didn't suffer.

"I could make lunch if you want." Sousuke offered

"Would you? The only thing I can make and not screw up is pancakes." Makoto laughed nervously ad Sousuke smirked slightly.

"Sure, what do you want anyway?" he said gesturing to the bags.

"Is the green curry okay?"

"Fine by me."

Sousuke's dismissal of his shoulder pain was still probing Makoto's curiosity, but he left it alone nevertheless. He figured Sousuke would eventually tell him what happened. It was very obvious that the man didn't want to talk about it.He wondered if Rin knew what happened, he also wondered if Rin knew Sousuke's sexuality but that could wait for a couple years or maybe even more.

* * *

Makoto was finishing the curry Sousuke had made for them and dear god was it good. Sousuke wasn't kidding at a ll when he claimed he could cook. Rin must've really been a terrible cook just like him. He remembered the time in 7th grade when they were making monkey bread in cooking class an he caught a rag on fire, after that, that teacher was the only one who didn't like him.

"That was really good Sousuke, where did you learn to cook like that?"

"Rin is so terrible that I took a cooking class when I was out on injury. About 3 weeks after the  second time I was shot."

"Oh gosh, he was that bad?"

"I made him get fast food for me everyday for 2 weeks."

"Wow, Rin and I have more in common than I thought."

"You cant be that bad, no one can, it's not humanly possible." Sousuke began laughing.

"I burn everything except for pancakes." Makoto said putting his head down, Sousuke continued to laugh. Makoto liked seeing him laugh, he liked Sousuke's smile a lot. He didn't know how to describe it  but he probably liked it so much because it was relatively rare, like Haru's was.

Sousuke finally quit laughing at Makoto's hopelessness and looked at Makoto, "It only takes practice, I could teach you someday if you want."

"Yeah, someday I'll probably need to function on my own."

"Not as long as I'm around." Sousuke added, offering a small grin to Makoto. Makoto felt his heart pound for a couple of seconds, he didn't know Sousuke intended to stay for more than a short amount of time. "So should we take bets on how long?"

"What?"

"How long it takes Rin to propose to Nanase. I give it between 5-7 months."

"Sousuke I don't think betting is appropriate."

"Sure it is, now c'mon, how long?"

"3 weeks." Makoto didn't take much convincing.  "So what are we betting?"

"An expensive dinner. Entree's, main courses', dessert's, everything and anything the winner wants. I can eat for hours Makoto."

"You're on. Haru said yes to living with him so Rin will probably ask while his confidence is  up."

"You're forgetting that Rin is a gigantic baby."

"Well the, whoever's closest I guess." Makoto finished, Sousuke smirked at him and then walked into his own room.

Makoto was re-evaluating his life ad how he never noticed once how attractive Sousuke was.

* * *

 

Sousuke and Makoto went out for dinner as Sousuke had promised him before. They went to a traditional sushi restaurant in the next town over from Iwatobi. Makoto ordered the Tako and Ikura while Sousuke ordered Unagi and Uni.

Makoto thought that Unagi kind of tasted like chicken.

Their tea was brought to them and the waitress attempted to hit on Sousuke, who was more than clearly uninterested. Makoto giggled at this, he found it a  bit strange that he was being  satisfied by Sousuke rejecting someone. He didn't understand how he was _suddenly_ a teenage girl for someone whom he had just stated interacting with.

"You okay? It looks like something's bothering you?"

"No, no I'm fine, really Sousuke." Makoto smiled

"Good, so do you like this place so far?"

"Yeah it's really nice, you should hint to Rin for him to propose here."

"No way, I'm not giving Rin anymore courage. We shook on it so I cannot have him proposing now can I?"

"You must be a great friend Sousuke." Makoto joked, Sousuke's phone began to ring. He looked at the caller ID hit something and put his phone in his pocket. "Who was that?"

"Rin, god only knows what he wants." Sousuke's phone rang again. Sousuke sighed and then answered. "What?"

_"Dang grumpy."_

"What is it?"

_"None of the children have ties with the suspects and the suspects have verified alibis."_

"Damnit, alright. Keep looking."

_"Sure thing. Am I interrupting a date or something."  
_

"No. Now get on task."

_"Oh my god, I am! Who is it? Boy? Girl? Oh, my, god, is it Makoto?"_

"Rin, do your work."

 _"I can't believe your on a date wi-"_ Rin was cut off by Sousuke when he hung up.

"What did he want?" Makoto asked.

"He um, he lost some of his paperwork." Sousuke lied, Makoto always seemed a bit depressed when he heard of this particular case, they were having a good time and he didn't want to ruin that.

"Oh gosh, that sounds like Rin."

"Haha, tell me about it."

"Haru left his phone over at Rin's once and Rin texted him to let him know."

"He's not the sharpest knife in the kitchen."

"No, he isn't." Makoto laughed, Rin was probably sneezing like crazy now. Sousuke could imagine Rin telling Haru that he was 'getting it' with Makoto. Rin was mentally unstable, that much is clear to someone without a degree in psychology.

"So how has work been?" Makoto asked suddenly.

"Well I haven't been shot at in a couple of months but I think desk work is the equivalent to hell, so I guess it's been alright."

"That's good- Oh my gosh!"

"What?!"

"Ryugazaki-san!"

"Ryuga-who-san?"

"He's a nurse at the hospital, that's one of my patients he's with."

"Oh?"

"Hazuki, he requested Ryugazaki-san to be his nurse for the rest of time he was at the hospital. That's so cute!"

Sousuke felt a bit of warmth spread to the tips of his ears at Makoto's statement, he fought a strong urge to say 'no you're cute' like some sort of awkward middle schooler.

Sousuke honestly didn't know how he was going to live with Makoto without making things awkward.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments give me not only inspiration, but life.


	6. Getting somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke gets somewhere with his case, and his emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woohoo for quick updates amiright?

Sousuke woke up the next morning with a dull headache and a text from Rin, he had slept in about an hour and pissed because of this.  
  
He put a pair of jeans on and a v-neck. He slipped his shoes on and put a jacket on as he rushed out the door. He was borderline speeding to the Iwatobi police department.  
  
"Took you long enough to get here, I understand you probably had a long night with-"  
  
"Rin shut your mouth, my god. Did you manage to connect the victims."  
  
"Uh, no. Kisumi recommended waiting for you."  
  
"Alright, I'll get on it now then." With that Sousuke was off to the invisible wall to try to connect the victims.  
  
He looked through the children's extracurricular's, anything you could think of really, and found nothing. He was stumped, he didn't know how on Earth the assailant had found these kids, they knew each other from the lack of struggle at the crime scene, but how did they know each other.  
  
Sousuke was on the verge of giving himself bald spots on the sides of his head when he heard the loud voice of Momotaro's older brother, Seijuuro. He looked into Kisumi's office to see them hugging. They walked out with Seijuuro's kid's in tow.  
  
Seijuuro had married Gou-Rin's little sister-3 years ago. They had met through the department, Rin bringing Gou to the same event that Kisumi had brought Seijuuro to. Seijuuro was the reason that Momotaro had gotten his internship with the ICPD (Iwatobi County Police Department).  
  
"Just wanted to stop by and see you, we haven't had a boy's night since little Rin here was born!" Seijuuro said loudly while reaching down and ruffling his son's hair.  
  
"Yeah  it's been a while, maybe you can help me get a guy, huh?" Kisumi said back with just as much volume. God, was Sousuke getting annoyed by these two. Seijuuro and Kisumi were your average straight and gay best friend, he remembered Kisumi telling him about how in their 2nd year, Seijuuro knocked a kid out for calling him a fruit.  
  
"Well, we have to go to mommy's spinning class and get her don't we!" he said to Kisumi while looking at their 3rd and youngest child, a newborn named Seijuuro. "Her instructor is just dying to see your cute little face isn't he!"  
  
Something clicked in Sousuke's brain at the sound of that.  
  
"I got it!" he yelled causing Rin to jump and spill his coffee down himself.  
  
"Ah fuck, what do you 'got', huh? It better be friggin good."  
  
"The victims. The murderer knew them thew the victim's parent's! Mikoshiba!"  
  
The younger of the red-heads  came running in. "Yeah, Yamazaki?"  
  
"Get the parent's of the victim's schedules for me. Work, book clubs, pottery classes, hell, even what strip clubs they've been seen at. That's how we find the scumbag who's killing these children."  
  
"On it, right away."  
  
"How the hell couldn't we get that!" Rin shouted while pulling the parent's photo's off of one invisible and lining them up above the children on another.  
  
"Thank Seijuuro for being as loud as he always is."

* * *

Sousuke was getting lunch at a deli in between the police department and the hospital. He had texted Makoto to met him there during his lunch break.  
  
"Sousuke!" Makoto waved walking out of the deli with a sandwich. "What did you want to talk about, it sounded pretty urgent."  
  
"look, I'm not supposed to be disclosing info on the case to anyone, but I want you to know this," Sousuke grabbed Makoto's arms and ran his thumbs over his scars. "We're really close to finding the asshole who killed those kids, you won't have to worry about anymore kids winding up on your table."  
  
Makoto's eyes filled with tears and he smiled at Sousuke for a couple of seconds before hugging him.  
  
"Thanks Sousuke, I won't tell anyone, you have my word."  
  
"Good." Sousuke said rubbing Makoto's back, resting his chin on Makoto's shoulder.  
  
"I-I should probably get back to the hospital now, my lunch break is kind of short." Makoto pulled away wiping tears from his face "We can um, we can go to dinner later maybe."  
  
"That sounds good Makoto."  
  
"Good."  
  
As Makoto walked away his phone rang.  
  
"Yes Rin?"  
  
 _"We've got a connection, the mothers go to some sort of work out class together."_  
  
"Okay, anything else?"  
  
 _"No, just how did Makoto take the news?"_  
  
"How did you-"  
  
 _"Don't worry I won't tell Kisumi, just tell me are you two a thing?"_  
  
Sousuke paused and considered hanging up but he wanted to talk about this for some reason, he was pretty confused about his feelings towards Makoto. "Uh, n-no we aren't."  
  
 _"You're kidding? You seem really close for just starting to interact a while ago."_  
  
"Rin, I'm actually pretty confused about how I feel."  
  
 _"Did he give you a boner?"_  
  
"Are you fucking serious? This is why I don't talk to you about stuff."  
  
 _"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Look if you want to talk later I'll be serious but we need to focus on narrowing this guy down."_  
  
"For once you're paying more attention than me." Sousuke chuckled fondly, he remembered how off task Rin was when he was serving as Nanase's bodyguard, but hey, at least Sousuke could keep it in his pants unlike Rin. He had slept with Nanase about 3 days into being assigned to protecting him.  
  
 _"Tell me about it."_  
  
Sousuke hung up at that and continued to walk the last block to the station, he was ready to find this guy and put him in jail.

* * *

He saw a text from Makoto pop up as he was trying to determine the instructor the women had in common.  
  
 _I get off in 10 minutes did you actually want to go eat?_  
  
 _Yeah, where do you want to go? I chose last time so I figure it's you're turn._  
  
Instead  of going back to his work, he waited fora response.   
  
 _They have an American style burger restaurant that Haru and I used to go to when we were in school._  
  
 _Sounds good I'll meet you there in 10 then._  
  
 _Alright ^-^_  
  
Sousuke wondered to himself how Makoto managed to be cute even over text.   
  
"Makoto?" he heard from his door.  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
"You still want to talk about it?"  
  
"I don't know you kind of spoiled it with the boner question."  
  
"I'm sorry that I was curious about it." Rin stated in mock-defense.  
  
"That's a really weird thing to be curious about, you sure Nanase won't get jealous?"  
  
"Oh, hardy-har-har, Sousuke. But really, how do you feel about him?"  
  
"I don't know, he's just so... so,"  
  
"Cute?"  
  
"Yeah, cute."  
  
"I had that problem too. I mean nothing that made me worry about Haru or anything, but your version seems about 24 times worse than mine."  
  
"I don't know Rin, he just makes me feel unusual."  
  
"You like him."  
  
"I've never really.."  
  
"Never really liked someone?"  
  
"No, I mean there has been girls that I have dated but I didn't feel like this with them."  
  
"Maybe you're in love with Makoto?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, there is no way, you said so yourself that we had just started talking only a while ago."  
  
"Yeah, you're right. Maybe you should just ask him on a date, like a proper date."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"You could just tell him straight up that you like him though too."  
  
"No, I'll go with the date."   
  
"Get on it lover boy." Giving  Rin a hard punch in the shoulder he left to go meet Makoto at the burger place he was talking about.  
  
He was going to ask Makoto on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i LOVE comments guys  
> LOVE them


	7. Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke can't physically ask Makoto out, he can already imagine Rin making fun of him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put this on my fanfiction account as well ( les etoiles et le ciel )  
> i'm thinking of ending the stories differently so watch out for that when the time comes

Sousuke waited out front of the burger place Makoto had suggested over text.

'A date.' he thought 'It won't be hard to ask him, I've already asked him to dinner before, he just asked me to dinner. Fuck but not like that, he's just a friend, ha, a friend! Nothing more than that, why am I even thinking about this? I don't know Sousuke why are you thinking about this? Damnit, I might as well be talking to myself like some lunatic.'

"Sousuke?" he heard Makoto call, he looked up from his feet and his thought process broke, thankfully.

"Hey, let's go in, yeah?"

"Yeah."

* * *

 

They were seated and ordered drinks. Sousuke asked Makoto how his day was and he was saying something about a slow day. Sousuke was having a relatively hard time focusing on Makoto's words as his attention was being drawn to Makoto's eyes. Had  they always been so green? How had he never noticed the smile lines around the corners? Come to think of it Makoto was normally always smiling, that beautiful smile.

The next thing he new, the waitress was putting their drinks in front of them and asking if they were ready to order. When Makoto and he ordered their burgers he had noticed that their waitress was subtly trying to hit on him. It never would have worked on him but he considered taking it and using it on Makoto. He decided against it when he realised Makoto was obviously not stupid, given his career choice, and more likely than not realized the waitress was hitting on him and that it would be more than obvious that he was trying to hit on him.

"Makoto, I was um- I was..."

"Huh? You were what Sousuke?"

Sousuke was choking up badly on the whole 'ask the cutie you live with out on a date even though you already know in the back of your mind he thinks your attractive because of that incident a couple mornings ago' thing.

"I um, I was- glad! Yeah, glad that you suggested we come here, I was actually really craving burgers recently." Sousuke lied sheepishly. He couldn't do it, He didn't want to risk ruining the normalcy of his life right now.

"Really? I hope that you would've said something if I suggested something else, it wouldn't of mattered to me."

"I'll um, remember that for next time."

Makoto checked his phone and Sousuke felt a wave of awkwardness roll through his body. He felt like a damn junior high student, he might as well start breaking out in acne and have his voice crack on every work he says.

Makoto on the other hand was also struggling with the affect his roommate had on him. He was spazzing over text to Haru about his dinner 'date' with Sousuke like a teenage girl who read too many shojo mangas and thought she had a chance but really didn't.

When their food came out, Sousuke was thinking of how Rin would patronize him when he  told him that the words 'would you like to go out sometime' wouldn't physically leave his mouth. Makoto on the other hand,  was thinking of how embarrassed he'd be if Sousuke had been able to read minds,and how he was lucky he didn't because he would have to find a nice cave to live in.

The waitress gave another unsuccessful try at Sousuke and hen walked away. Both of the men were glad they had an excuse to not be speaking, as both of their minds had gone crazy with strange emotions.

It took a lot of will power but Sousuke had somehow forced a question out of himself that somewhat resembled asking Makoto for an actual date.

"Do you want to watch a movie?"

"What?" was the response.

"Once we get home, I mean." Sousuke was amazed at how he was able to keep a cool demeanor. "It's early so I mean why not?"

"Yeah, I don't have to be at work until 8 so that would be nice."

Sousuke could basically hear Rin, 'nice, but not nice enough to get in his pants any time soon.', but he praised himself nonetheless.

"Great."

* * *

_Haru!!_

_What?_

_Sousuke asked me to a movie!!_

_Did he ask you to one, or to watch one with him?_

_Haru! Why doyou have to be such a killjoy!! :(_

_Im just making sure._

_What movie?_

_I dont know actually_

_Does he know of your crippling fear of anything scary?_

_no_

_pray that he doesnt have anything scary in mind_

_i dont think that youll be able to control latching onto him_

_you might give yourself an awkward problem downstairs_

_HARUKA!!_

_you might_

_GOODBYE_

_have a good time with Yamazaki._

"Who's that, huh?"

"Makoto."

"Oh? What is he saying?" Rin was curious to see if Sousuke had the balls to actually ask Makoto for a date.

"Yamazaki asked him to watch a movie with him."

"Dork, I knew he couldn't do it."

"Do what."

"Ask Makoto out. He's got some gigantic feelings for him. He's never really had feelings for anyone  at all so he's a little awkward with it."

"Yamazaki is gay?"

"Not really, I think he just has found the one."

* * *

 

"So what are we going to watch? Makoto asked after he and Sousuke had changed out of their clothes from work.

"I have Ring and the Japanese version of APT."

Makoto cringed inwardly, Ring was a horror film and he guessed that APT was too. He had known mostly everything had ended up alright in Ring so he opted for that.

they were about 20 minutes in when Sousuke noticed Makoto had a tight grip on the couch.

"Makoto do you not like horror?"

"N-not really."

"You should have told me that, do you want me to turn it off?"

"N-no. It's alright."

It was fairly obvious that Makoto was lying but if he had tried to turn it off immediately Makoto would get mad at him. So he just put his hand on top of Makoto's and squeezed slightly.

Makoto calmed down a bit but when the next supernatural thing occurred he tensed and  Sousuke decided it was passed time to turn it off.

"Let's just watch TV until we pass out, yeah?"

"Yeah." Makoto answered and shook his head rigidly. Sousuke picked the remote up and switched the inputs and turned to a channel that played old cartoons, when he sat down he sat closer to Makoto than previously, worried that he had partially traumatized him.

He could always give him a undercover psych evaluation if he needed to, though he hoped he wouldn't have to.

Sousuke felt himself nod off a couple of times but managed to stay awake until Makoto fell asleep. When he eventually did, Makoto's head fell onto a pillow near the other end of the couch. Sousuke leaned back and closed his eyes and eventually fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor mako ahahahah   
> COMMENTS R LUV COMMENTS R LIFE


	8. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke and Rin narrow down the suspect list. Makoto loses a man who was in a car accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel this story coming to a close in 4 or 5 or maybe even 6 chapters but idk so enjoy this one

Sousuke woke up with Makoto's feet on his lap, he looked to Makoto for a minute and then looked at the clock, it said 7:00 AM. He turned to look at Makoto again, he wondered how he was doing, he hadn't lost anyone since the night he had walked in on his  unorthodox way of dealing with the loss. He could imagine the pain of not being able to save someone, hell he had lived through it, he's a cop.

He  knew what it was like to not be able to save someone, he even felt responsible for those kids but he just dealt with it better than Makoto did. He knew how that feeling could eat at you and that someday Makoto would just have a bad day. That was why he was here, he was going to wait until Makoto wanted to talk about it. It was obvious he had some sort of front up, trying to keep Sousuke from remembering that it even happened.

He would have to wait. Sadly, the next time it would be a clear topic without prying would be the next time he loses someone. 

Sousuke had been thinking of this all week, he was lucky he had majored in what he majored in, it came in handy whenever Rin would have unnecessary breakdowns.

He really hoped Makoto didn't feel as hopeless as he remembered being when he had went through severe depression. He couldn't remember a time at all when he had felt happy, he didn't even bother to smile, a perk to being ever so stoic for most of your life, he wanted to be happy so badly but he wasn't able to participate in what he loved. He had lost a few friends while trying to overcompensate for the emptiness he felt.

Now that he thought of it, that may have been why he took psychology in college, he wanted to figure out what cause the wasteland that was his soul at the time.

After realizing he had been staring at Makoto for what seemed like too long he closed his eyes again, not trying to sleep but just relax. When he looked to the clock to see that it said 7:30, he pushed Makoto's feet from his lap and leaned over to nudge him awake.

"Mako, it's 7:30, you should probably take a shower since i hogged it last night."

"Y-yeah. I should, just 10 more minutes. Wake me up in 10." He said before closing his eyes again. Sousuke waited 10 minutes before attempting to get him up again. Lucky for him Makoto wasn't like Rin to get up, he just said okay, stretched, and shuffled to the shower. 

He's so adorable.

* * *

 

Sousuke and Rin were at work trying to find the common factor in the victim's mother's spin classes. Kisumi was loudly talking on the phone to who Sousuke guessed  was Seijuuro. 

"Rin, do you know where Gou takes spin classes?"

"No, I can ask her. Why? You want to get a nice butt for Mako????"

"Shut the hell up. I wanted to know if it was this one, if she might have signed up later than when they made this roster, the victim's look like Kaoru. And for your information, i already have a nice ass, shit head."

"...Your right, about the victim's looking like Kaoru, and your ass too. I'll ask Gou when I get the chance." 

Sousuke laughed and they went back to work.

There we're 2 male instructors that had had all 4 women in there classes. One named Ichinose Takada, and the other was Shiingo Akira. Rin and Sousuke got their addresses and where going to each of the men to see if the physical profile fit that they got from the shoe print left at a crime scene. Other than the footprint the only evidence was the type of knife used to stab the children and the type of gun used to kill the witness. A butterfly styled multi-tool, and a 9mm handgun.

Both of the men were filed for owning guns so if one was to fit the physical profile they could get a warrant to search the said man's house for the tool.

They stopped by Shiingo's house first, he was shorter than Sousuke but taller than Rin so he obviously wasn't 5'6", so they asked him questions about Ichinose and who he interacts with.

Shiingo said that Ichinose had a hard time interacting with the women at the class, he tried to avoid speaking to them unless it was absolutely necessary, he liked interacting with the women's children though. This fit Sousuke's profile of him, so they asked if he knew Ichinose's height. 5'6"

After that they went straight to Ichinose's house, the man looked like his weight fit the profile, he was definitely 5'6" and his shoes were the same size. After asking him seemingly routine questions, they went back to the office and sent a request for a warrant. They probably would't get one until the next day so they both returned home after getting a late lunch. Sousuke decided to take a nap as he was still tired from staying up until Makoto fell asleep.

* * *

 

Sousuke woke up at 7 and made diner for himself, he didn't know when Makoto would be home but he probably wouldn't want to eat when he got back.

After eating, Sousuke sat on the couch and made fun of Korean soap operas. 

It was 11:21 PM when Makoto came through the door, he had dried tears streaking his face and his eyes were filled with tears, he didn't see Sousuke and he b-lined for the bathroom. He heard the door slam shut and he then processed what had happened. He lost someone.

"Makoto! Get out of there!" He yelled running for the bathroom, he heard sobs coming from the closed door, he really hoped it was unlocked because he was only fond of busting down doors if they we not his.

Lucky for him it was unlocked and he saw Makoto sitting on the ground crying hysterically. Immediately Sousuke got down and hugged Makoto, letting him cry into his chest. He moved from his kneeling position to sit. He leaned back onto the wall and held Makoto close to him.

"It-it was a-a man, he-car accident I couldn't." Makoto tried to choke out in between sobs.

"Shhhhh, calm down, I know that it's hard, I know." Sousuke tried to console him. 

It was probably around 1 AM when Makoto finally calmed down. Sousuke was still stroking the back of his head when he suggested they move to the couch. 

"Makoto, do you want to talk?"

"I don't know." 

Sousuke stayed quiet to see if he would speak before beginning to talk.

"Makoto with jobs like these people are going to die. You need to accept that you can't save everyone, you can't tear yourself up like this. I know you don't think much of it but it hurts to see you like this, knowing what you would have done if I wasn't here"

"But he died."

"I've had my fair share of people that died on my account, whether it be on failing to protect them or having to shoot them. I know that it hurts, trust me I do but you can't continue to hurt yourself! I want you  to come to me not that god forsaken razor in the bathroom! Call me, find me, text me anything, the only way I wouldn't answer is if my phone was dead or if I was actively on duty. I am not standing for this, not a way in hell that I would."

"I don't, I can't."

"Why? Do you think I don't care enough?"

"I don't want to bother anybody."

"Makoto! If you were in pain and didn't tell me is the only way you could bother me, ever! Don't you dare ever think that you would 'bother' me with this. I know how bad it feels when you can't save somebody, believe me I know."

Makoto began crying again and leaned into Sousuke's arms. Sousuke leaned back on the couch and laid down with Makoto. He rubbed Makoto's back and ran his fingers through his hair. He hated seeing Makoto like this, he was a bit disturbed by the fact that Makoto had thought it bothersome to tell somebody that you were upset.

Self hatred didn't look good on him, It didn't look good on anyone. Even if it only happened to him in certain circumstances.

He checked  the clock after Makoto fell asleep, 3 AM. He decided to just go to sleep with Makoto on the couch, if he was lucky he would be able to catch that sicko Ichinose. If they didn't get the warrant, he was taking off and so was Makoto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mako can't catch a break 
> 
>  
> 
> COMMENTS :)


	9. Rehab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke helps Makoto the only way he know how to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wonder how Sousuke will help? hmmmm.

Sousuke turned Makoto's alarm off when he woke up at 6:30. He called Kisumi to ask if he and Rin's warrant request had gone through yet, when he responded no, Sousuke asked for the day off. He looked through Makoto's phone for his work number and called on his phone.

"Hello, this is Iwatobi Hospital, do you have a question?"

"Hello, this is Tachibana Makoto's roommate, who do I speak to about his being sick?"

"I'll direct you now."

"Thanks."

"Hello? This is Tachibana-san's supervisor."

"Hi, this is Mak-Tachibana's roommate Yamazaki. Does he have any scheduled surgeries for the day? I'm afraid he's feeling under the weather."

"I'll check... No he doesn't. How sick is he? He has to be in the emergency care later in the day, do I have to call another surgeon in?"

"I'm pretty sure he has the flu, I' not sure if it's just the one day thing that's going around though."

"Alright, thank you for calling Yamazaki-san."

"No problem."

Sousuke put Makoto's phone on the ground and put his arm back around Makoto, he caught a luck break that Makoto had no scheduled surgeries today. He closed his eyes and fell asleep again stroking Makoto's back.

* * *

 

Makoto woke up later at 7:30, he saw the clock on the cable box and freaked out, he should be at work for paper work now!

He struggled to get up when he realized that Sousuke's arms were draped over him and that he was laying on top of him. He remembered why he was laying on the couch with Sousuke and got choked up, he normally had time to straighten himself out before work the next day to try to get through it without crying and when he got home he would cut again but Sousuke obviously was on high alert.

With tears in his eyes he wiggled to try to get off of Sousuke without hurting him. He ultimately failed when he woke Sousuke up by pushing on his bad shoulder.

"Ow." Sousuke groaned opening his eyes and grabbing his shoulder. Hurting Sousuke sent Makoto over the edge and he started to cry as he sat up. "Makoto? What's wrong are you okay?" Sousuke panicked.

"I'm-I'm fine." Makoto was whaling out unintentionally, trying not to cry but failing badly. "I have to go-to work. I'm late."

"No, I called in for you, i told them that you we're sick."

"What, why?" Makoto cried still trying unsuccessfully not to cry. 

"Because look at you, you aren't okay!"

"I'm fine, I'm just emotional is all."

"You're joking? I know for a fact if I wasn't here then you would've went straight for that stupid fucking razor in the bathroom!" Sousuke felt bad for yelling at Makoto but he was angry. He didn't like that Makoto hurt himself, in fact it made him sick.

"I'm sorry, Sousuke." Makoto was still blubbering.

"I don't want you to be sorry, I want you to stop hurting yourself!"

"I'm sorry!" Makoto cried

"Stop being sorry!"

"Sorry!" He couldn't help it, that's what he felt, he didn't know what else to say.

"Don't tell me that you're sorry, tell me that you wont touch that goddamn stupid fucking razor!" Sousuke felt like a terrible asshole for cursing at Makoto, but he was passionate about this ad he couldn't control it.

"I-I won't."

"You won't what? You wont touch it again, or you won't tell me you won't touch it?"

"I-I just can't! It's too much Sousuke! It's the only thing that helps! I'm fine after i just-" Makoto couldn't finish his sentence because he was crying to hard.

"Makoto, you obviously aren't okay." Sousuke started talking after taking a deep breath and calming himself down. "If you were you wouldn't be crying or going to the razor."

Sousuke wanted to hug him but he felt that Makoto didn't want to be touched much at the moment.

"Look Makoto, I know how hard it is to loose someone on your own account. I'm a cop, it's happened to me before. It bothers me a lot but not more then it should. Sometimes I have bad days and I just talk to Rin about it and I feel better. That's what you should do. It doesn't even have to be me, it could be Haru, and I know he doesn't seem like it but Rin is a great listener. Sometimes even a hug helps."

"But I can feel the life leaving them, I hate it, it's my fault that they couldn't be saved."

"I'm sure you could any other surgeon in there and they would have the same result. Everyone is destined to die, there time just happened to be then."

"I just don't know how else to feel better."

"We could try a lot of things. Ice cream, movies, TV, board games, reading, writing, drawing, painting, music, you seemed to calm down a lot when we lay on the couch." Sousuke couldn't help but hear the little Rin with horns on his shoulder say  _'you mean cuddling, Sou?'._

"Okay."

"You should probably eat first." Sousuke got up from the couch, he put his hand on Makoto's shoulder and squeezed before continuing to walk into the kitchen. 

He made Makoto  eat breakfast and then he asked him what he wanted to do. Makoto asked to read and lay down on the couch with him. He went to his room and got a book while Sousuke waited on the couch. Sousuke didn't really see what Makoto chose to read because he was laying under Makoto and trying to make sure that they were both comfortable.

He felt his chest constrict a bit every time he heard Makoto sniffle but other than that he was fine just reading along with Makoto, lucky for him he was reading a bit faster than Makoto.

He saw Makoto start to loosen his grip on the book and felt him start to lean his head back onto his chest. His phone buzzed and Makoto jerked but Sousuke started to run his fingers through his hair and he relaxed again. He heard light snoring a couple minutes later and the front door open, he knew it was Nanase or Rin but he was hoping that it was an axe murderer so he could avoid Rin's teasing or Nanase's punching.

He glared at the person, who he later saw was Rin, and he kept quiet. He didn't miss the shocked look on his best friends face before it changed into a questioning stare.

"Keep your mouth shut he just fell asleep." he whispered.

"What are you doing?"

"Someone died on his table last night and he was really upset, I called him out of work saying he had that 1 day flu that's been going around."

"Oh, I'm guessing that's-" Rin paused when Makoto shifted and snuggled into Sousuke, thinking he was waking the sleeping man up. "Why you called out today?"

"Yeah. Did our warrant come through yet?"

"No, i texted you like 32 times and you didn't answer so like a good friend/cop i asked Haru for the spare key and came over."

"Sorry, he was pretty bad this morning. He didn't want to talk about it but I kind of wouldn't drop it."

"I dont think that will help your chances with him." Rin joked.

"Dick."

"Jerk."

"Bitch." Rin laughed quietly before leaving to go back to the office and do his paperwork.

He hoped that Makoto would catch up on some of his missed sleep. He would wake up him up a couple of hours later if he needed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweetie pie Sousuke up in this bitch


	10. Warrant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The warrant has gone through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow guys, chapter 10
> 
> sorry for the wait, i had this chapter almost finished and my computer just turned off for updates so I lost all of it:/ and then my sports schedule got all clogged up and i had 0 time to write.  
> so i gotsome veggie straws and juice and am now going to pull an all nighter writing this

Sousuke's phone rang when he was at lunch with Rin. It was Kisumi calling to tell them that their request for a warrant had gone through and were now clear to look through Takada's house.

Rin suggested that they wait until Takada was taking his shift at the spin class so he didn't take off,  so they waited an hour before heading over to the other side of town. When they got there, Takada was getting in his car and leaving for work. When Takada had turned off of his street Sousuke and Rin left the car and entered the house, luckily he was the type of person to leave his door unlocked, both Rin and Sousuke were rather terrible at picking locks.

They entered and the house was messy, not a cute messy with like a jacket lying on the back of his couch and a book on the couch, messy as in you couldn't see the floor and moldy dishes left on dining room table. Rin pinched his nose shut and complained while Sousuke looked through drawers and cabinets for the gun and the multi-tool. Sousuke foun the gun in Takada's bedside table but the multi-tool was nowhere to be found.

Sousuke was angry, he probably was about to go and get off murdering another child, he would break his promise to Makoto and another family would have to mourn the loss of their child. Sousuke picked up something, he didn't know what it was-a remote maybe-and threw it at the wall, he kicked the junk on the floor and suppressed a yell which came out as a growl.

The gun wasn't enough evidence, they needed that goddamn knife tool to put this guy away.

"Sousuke, calm down!" Rin was yelling, dragging Sousuke to the front yard. "Shh! Think about something else, I know how frustrating this is."

"I can't handle that this scumbag gets to remain free after all the shit that he's done! It makes me sick!" Sousuke kicked at Takada's mailbox post, he couldn't explain how mad he was if he tried.

"Hey, um, how-how's Makoto feeling? Last you told me he had a bad day?" Rin was trying to get Sousuke to calm down, he figured if Makoto was doing better it  would subdue Sousuke blatant rage, it was a 50-50 shot.

Lucky for Rin, Sousuke told a deep breath and regained his composure slowly. "He's better." he said shakily, still trying to calm himself down. "He woke up about 2 hours after you left. We just ate and watched TV like that until he fell asleep again."

"Good, that's good. You're lucky that it wasn't Haru who walked in on that. He would've smacked the shit out of you!"

Sousuke laughed at that, "Yeah, he would have. Did you find out where Gou goes for spin class?"

"Yeah, it's the same one this sleaze bag works at, She told me that she'd stop going."

"Good, those kid's look to much like Kaoru for my comfort."

"Tell me about it. Red hair like Gou and gold eyes like Seijuurou, you'd think that was hard to find in Japan."

"You and me both."

"Let go back to the department and tell Kisumi what we found. We'll keep this guy on watch." Rin suggested. The made there way back to the ICPD to find Kisumi announcing a sort of 'field day' with the interns.

"Just in time! Sousuke, you will be on normal duty with Mikoshiba here and Nitori will take your regular position, for Thursday only."

"Do I get a gun?"

"No." Kisumi and Sousuke answered at the same time.

"Any questions?" Kisumi finished, Rin  and Sousuke following him to his office after he was finished. "So what did you want to tell me boys?"

"We found the gun but not the murder weapon for the kids." Rin answered while Sousuke huffed.

"Alright, at least it's enough to keep him under surveillance. I'll see if I can get anyone extra for Thursday when ol' Sousuke's out of commission." Kisumi joked, "You guys can go home now. Happy Tuesday!"

* * *

 

Sousuke got home after finishing the paperwork that Kisumi hand to him apologetically as he was just about to leave. It took him about 3 hours to finish.

He was surprised to see that Makoto was already home in the kitchen.

Surprisingly whatever Makoto was making smelled really good, contradicting his claims of being a terrible cook.

"Mako?"

"Sousuke! You're home!"

"Yeah, so are you. Why so early?"

"They got the surgeon from yesterday to cover the emergency shift, just so I could have some more time to 'recover' from being sick. I only had to do my scheduled surgeries." Makoto gave a large smile and Sousuke knew he was off.

"How was you're day?" He asked Makoto wearily.

"Oh, it was great. Not too much today!"

"Okay, now tell me how was it really?" Makoto's smile faltered and he looked at Sousuke for a while before looking at the ground.

"Not good." the honest answer came out. He could see tears edging out of the corners of Makoto's eyes.

"Come here, tell me about it." Sousuke said holding his arms open. Makoto looked up at him like a kid who was about to burst out crying, biting his lip and everything, that was exactly what he did before accepted Sousuke's hug.

"We had a failed cancer removal surgery, the poor woman only has about a week left."

"There is nothing you can do about that stuff Makoto. It's alright, you did all you could."

"Thank you Sousuke!"

"For what?"

"Being here, letting me talk about this, caring."

"Makoto, of course I care, everybody does. I like it when you talk instead of going in and using different means of relief."

Makoto looked up at Sousuke and smiled while the latter was stroking his hair, Sousuke was fighting an urge to cup the sides of his face and kiss him like they were in some sort of fucked up romance movie with an awkward not-couple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But if you knew Sousuke, you'd know that he was pretty terrible at fighting urges.

So he cupped Makoto's face and kissed him like they were in some sort of fucked up romance movie with an awkward non-couple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are thoroughly appreciated, fear not, the story does not end here(that would be such a bad ending wouldn't it)


	11. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke panics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back with the quick updates hell yeAH

It wasn't anything crazy, just a kiss on the lips, mouth to mouth that was  all. Makoto's initial shock had dissipated and he was ready this kiss Sousuke back but Sousuke had realized what he was doing and jerked away quickly.

"I-I, I'm sorry Makoto. I have to... I have to go... to um, to the store. Food, yeah food and stuff." With that Sousuke bolted out of the door. Makoto processed what Sousuke had felt and rushed to the door.

"Sousuke wait! Darn it." Sousuke was already jogging down the street to the store. Makoto felt terrible, he had know idea hos to bring the subject back up to Sousuke without having it shot down immediately. He knew Sousuke well enough  to know that that's what would happen.

Sousuke on the other hand had stopped running once he was a block away. He wasn't sad because he thought Makoto wasn't kissing him back, he was shocked at himself for kissing Makoto.  For all he knew Makoto could have been disgusted by it or even felt violated. He knew Makoto had thought he was good looking from that time when he got drunk, but he was drunk. He couldn't believe that he just started kissing him, even though it was just a close mouth kiss, he hadn't even told Makoto how he felt beforehand. 

He didn't know what to think; he wasn't bothered by the fact that he was kissing another guy, he knew he liked Makoto that way it wasn't a new thing for him. It was that he had forced it upon Makoto, it was short and he didn't give Makoto any time to react to it but, he just wasn't the type to plant one on him without making sure it was alright.

He felt his phone buzz in his back pocket a couple times within a couple minutes and he pulled it out. Makoto was texting him.

_Sousuke come back_

_I'm going to bed,  please come back home_

He felt terrible for making Makoto feel worried but he didn't think that he could look at him for a while, he just felt as if he had committed a crime, Makoto may not of wanted that and he just felt so terrible.

He didn't know what to do, so he walked home. He called Rin on the way back.

_"Yeah Sousuke?"_

"I fucked up."

_"What?"_

"I kissed him."

_"How is that fucking up?"_

"I just randomly did it. He probably hates me."

_"I've withheld this info for a while because I figured you could do this whole 'soul mate' thing without it, but apparently you cannot."_

"What are you even talking about?"

_"Makoto likes you. A lot, like just as much as you like him. He texts Haru during your dinner dates spazzing out just like  you do sometimes."_

"What."

_"Knowing you, you probably 'forced yourself' onto Makoto and panicked without staying around to hear what he had to stay about it."_

"Well-"

_"You're an idiot. An idiot in love."_

"Love?"

_"I was just joking there but thinking about it it seem is like you are."_

"That's crazy."

_"Love at first sight is a thing."_

"Don't be ridiculous."

_"I'm not. I knew Haru was the one when I first  saw him."_

"Rin-"

_"I'm not overdecorating it. I could feel it, I know how cheesy that is but it's true. I don't see why you can't be in love with Makoto."_

"Bye Rin."

 _"Just talk to him_   _please."_

Sousuke hung up and unlocked the door. He walked down the hall and looked through Makoto's door. He was sitting in bed reading the book he had been reading the day before. He took a deep breath and decided that he should talk to him. Rin was right, and if Makoto did have feelings for him then he saw no reason why he would have anything to loose. He knocked on the door and opened it enough to be able to move inside the room.

"Makoto?"

"Sousuke!"

"Look I just want to say sorry for forcing that on you. I don't-"

"You know what Sousuke, I know you don't want to talk about it but I do!" Sousuke kept quiet and let Makoto continue. "You din't give me any time to get a word in! I know you think that I was an unwilling participant but I wasn't! If you had given me 2 more seconds I-" Sousuke's hand on his shoulder had silenced him. Sousuke smiled to him and sat down.

"I know. I was talking to Rin on the phone before I came back, he told me about  your texting with Nanase. I'm just not the type of person to just lay one on somebody and it frightened me that I could have messed up whatever it is we have."

"Well it wouldn't have." Makoto pouted. He took Sousuke's hand from his shoulder and put it on his cheek. Sousuke gulped and Makoto took a nervous breath and smiled slightly.

Sousuke wasn't forcing anything, that was Makoto's way of telling him it was okay, so he went for it. He pulled Makoto's face to his and didn't hesitate to press their lips together. Makoto returned it enthusiastically and Sousuke smiled into it.It was dorky and cute and it caused Makoto to smile too. 

The kiss deepened  and then ended. Makoto blushed deeply and looked at his hands, Sousuke grinned and then cleared his throat.

"Where did all that confidence go Makoto?" he teased ad Makoto's face heated up. "Since we haven't clarified this, would you um..."

"Yes. I will." Makoto smiled still looking at his hands.

"Alright um. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

As soon as Sousuke exited Makoto's room and closed the door he clenched his fist in victory and walked to his room. Makoto had squealed and fell back into his bed.

Sousuke heard Rin in his head, ' _good job, dork._ '

* * *

 

Sousuke went to work the next morning with a smile on his face, he had kissed Makoto and he knew he probably shouldn't have been as giddy as he was but he didn't care.

"What the... whoa there mister happy! You talked to him about it!" Rin pulled Sousuke down and gave him a noogie.

"I did."

"And?" Rin was beaming.

"We are um... we're-"

"Dating?"

"Yeah." Sousuke smiled.

"Hey, quick question," Rin started "What was that restaurant you took Makoto to on your first non official date?"

"The Japanese one?"

"Yes, that one."

"Ikamura's."

"Alright great. You should probably go bond with Mikoshiba right?"

"Aren't we watching Takada today?"

"No Kisumi found a couple more people to do it."

"Okay. Are you coming?"

"No, I have to talk to Kisumi about something."

"What?"

"Uh, Kaoru has drama class tomorrow, I figured I should figure out what day the big play is and request off right?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll see you around then."

"Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys finally happy with me???!
> 
>  
> 
> (:COMMENTS PLEASE:)


	12. Happy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything was going amazingly it seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BEEN WAITING  
> SINCE BEFORE I WROTE THE FIRST CHAPTER  
> FOR THIS FRICKING CHAPTER

The rest of Sousuke's Wednesday was spent going over Thursday with Mikoshiba. They were going to the shooting range at 3 and then picking a up a regular beat cop shift from 4:30-6, then they were going back to the department to go over filling out reports after arrests or firing a gun. He got home after that to spend time with Makoto, he had this feeling that his time was limited with Makoto. It was probably because Makoto's shifts were normally super late.

Sousuke had to come into work at at 2:30 so he slept in until 2, courtesy of all the paperwork he had building up from being busy investigating Takada keeping him up until 3 AM.

Sousuke drug himself out of bed at 2 and saw a note from Makoto sitting on the kitchen counter. He blushed at how Makoto could be cute simply through the use of smiley face doodles. He ate an apple and got his clothes on, after that he left for the ICPD.

When he got there he saw Rin talking to Mikoshiba.

"You want to come with us Rin? Kisumi wouldn't care all that much."

"Haha, as much as I would love to, I'm getting off in a couple minutes."

"Just you and me Yamazaki!"

"Great." Sousuke deadpanned, "Come on we're leaving for the shooting range."

"Good luck, Sou." Rin called.

When they got there Sousuke was shocked at how terrible of a shot Mikoshiba was. By the time 30 minutes hit Mikoshiba improved but not by much. He had nearly hit a vital point but admitted that he was aiming for the shoulder. It was going to be a hard day, Sousuke could feel it.

* * *

 

On the other hand, Makoto was up on Thursday at 6:30 AM. He made himself breakfast and then left a note for Sousuke telling him to have a good day, he blushed at the couple-y things they were now doing.

When he got to work he greeted everyone, the front desk ladies, the nurses, the doctors, his secretary, even his previous patients.

"You're in a good mood today." Ryugazaki commented.

"So have you lately, does it have something to do with Hazuki-san that I saw you at dinner with?"

"Tachibana-san!"

"So it does. I'm glad for you, Hazuki-san seems like a nice man."

"He is, in his own way I mean." Ryugazaki blushed. "Your patient is prepped and ready by the way."

"Alright I''l go brief his loved one on what's happening. Thank you, Ryugazaki."

His patient had an early stage of thyroid cancer, not bad but enough to have to remove the entire thing.

He debriefed the man's girlfriend that it should take about 4 hours and that if anything was to happen that she would be alerted immediately. After that they brought the man into the operating room and started the procedure. Makoto finished up completely about 4 hours and 15 minutes later.

He thought about seeing Sousuke later tonight but he got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. It must've been nerves. He was happy to spend time with him, to have someone who knew everything about him, not that Haru didn't but he didn't know about his relationship with razor blades.

Everything was going so fantastic for him and he couldn't have felt better.

* * *

 

Rin had just gotten back from the ICPD. It was 5 and he was taking Haru to Ikamura's. He was nervous and he fiddled with the small box in his pocket.

"Oi, Rin are you ready? I am now."

"Oh yeah sorry, let's go."

The ride to Ikamura's was quiet and awkward unlike how loud it normally was. Haru had noticed Rin's strange behavior and he was concerned. He wasn't worried about being broken up with because he was well aware of how much Rin cared for him. 

His mind was taken off of Rin's attitude when he saw saw the small waterfall and koi pond in the side of the restaurant. They were seated and they ordered their drinks and food.

Rin's mouth was running dry and he really could use that glass of water ASAP. He was switching between ringing his hands together and fiddling with the box in his pocket. Their food came out and after they ate Rin cleared his throat loudly.

"Are you alright?" Haru asked at the scratchy sound of Rin clearing his throat.

"Um Haru, we've um, we've been going out for a really long time, huh?"

"Yes? 2 years, why are you-"

"God, such a long time." Rin laughed awkwardly, he had a speech written and memorized but he had forgotten it all in that instant. "You know how much I love you Haru."

Haru started to get scared by that. "Yes, I love you just as much, you know that."

"I hope you do, Sousuke's boldness with Makoto inspired this so here goes nothing." Before Haru could question him, Rin got on a knee and pulled out the box he had been messing around with all night.

"Haruka, I love you so much. Would you do me the honor of immortalizing it by marrying me maybe?" Rin's voice cracked slightly at the end of the sentence when he opened the box to reveal a ring.

A rare smile broke onto Haru's face. Not a small grin or a smirk, a full blown smile, he felt tears creeping into his eyes.

"Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes, of course yes." Rin smiled and slipped the ring onto Haru's finger. He jumped up and hugged Haru after jumping around a bit, like a kid who had  scored his first goal in soccer.

Haru whipped out his phone and texted Makoto, who would be content that he won his bet with Sousuke about when Rin would pop the pretty question. He wasn't exactly right but he was closer.

* * *

 

Sousuke and Mikoshiba were nearing the end of their beat shift. They were in downtown Iwatobi and the day was going by slowly, Sousuke was getting a bit annoyed by Mikoshiba's overbearing personality, just as he did with Rin's on occasion.

They were about to walk to get dinner when Sousuke saw a bright red-orange head in the crowd leaving the town's drama club. "Kaoru? I thought Rin was-" he cut himself off when he saw a man nearing him. He looked shifty and kept looking around, he turned around enough to expose his face. "Takada? Oh my god."

"What Yamazaki?"

"Mikoshiba, this is a serious situation. I need you to call Kisumi right now and have him ready to sen d back up. The Iwatobi murder is over there with your nephew."

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-"

"Momotaru! Calm down, we have control, we'll follow him and Kisumi will have back up sent. Dial his number, have it ready to go. We follow them now, do not be obvious."

"Right, alright."

Takada was talking to Kaoru and making him laugh. Takada started pointing in another direction, to the abandon building by where they currently standing. Kaoru looked unsure but then nodded and followed his mother's spin class instructor.

"Alright Mikoshiba, we follow them, Takada will respond violently if we try to confront him now, he has a gun and knows that I am a cop. I'm giving you my 2nd gun so you have something, alright?" Momo nodded and took the gun from Sousuke and they proceeded to follow them into the abandon building. Sousuke's phone buzzed in his pocket, whoever it was had to wait.

Sousuke saw Takada scratch the bottom of his back, moving his jacket to reveal a gun shaped outline and a strangely colored metal. The primary murder weapon.

"Momo, call Kisumi now, ask for back up at our exact address, I'm going ahead, proceed with caution once you are off the phone." Momo nodded frantically and removed the phone from his pocket and called Kisumi as Sousuke went ahead.

Sousuke made his way up the stairs in time to see Takada pull the tool out on Kaoru. Sousuke angled his gun to the the ground and tried to move forward to get close enough to put his gun to Takada's head, getting him to put the tool down. He moved slowly and it would've worked for him until-

"Uncle Sousuke help!" Kaoru screamed. Before Sousuke could react, Takada had ripped his gun from it's position and pointed it to Sousuke.

Sousuke felt a sharp pain in the middle of his chest where he had shot many before. He felt he shirt saturate quickly and heard Kaoru scream before everything went black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NONE OF YOU SAW THAT COMING
> 
> I HAVE LITERALLY BEEN WAITING THE ENTIRE STORY FOR THIS OH MY GODDDDDDDD
> 
> DON'T HATE ME GUYS, IF YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH MY WORK ON FF YOU WOULD KNOW I LIKE TRAGEDY
> 
> STAY TUNED :)


	13. Man down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke has been shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read the first version of this chapter then it will look the same until after the operation room scene, for new readers I hope you enjoy

Momotaro had ran up the steps when he heard a gunshot and a scream. He opened the door slowly and was horrified by what he saw. A man hunched over ready to stab Kaoru and oh my god-

Sousuke laying on the ground with his gun across the room and a large pool of blood. He walked up to the man standing over his nephew and aimed for his shoulder after yelling for him.

Momo fired and the bullet went clean through the man's skull. He rushed to Kaoru to make sure he was okay before grabbing Sousuke's walkie talkie.

 _"Sousuke? Sousuke what's going on?"_ he heard Kisumi and police sirens.

"It's Momotaro, Sousuke has been shot, there's a giant pool of blood and a hole clean through his back! It's right near the heart, Kisumi he's going to die! There needs to be an ambulance!"

He heard his own voice coming though the stairs. Kisumi came through the doors along with several other officers. Kisumi began yelling and he and other paramedics took Sousuke to the ambulance. He heard them talking loudly as they got Sousuke down the steps.

_'His pulse is weak' 'We need to get him to the hospital now or he'll die'_

He heard Kisumi talking to himself, "I called Rin here before I knew, damnit! This is going to tear him to pieces."

Kisumi went over to Kaoru and wrapped him in a foil blanket, carrying him down the steps, so he followed.

Kisumi was right. Just as they were getting Sousuke into the back of the ambulance, shouting vitals that he didn't understand but knew weren't good at all, Rin was exiting his car. Rin's eye caught the gurney and the ambulance first and they widened in shock. Kisumi rushed over immediately.

"Rin, I-"

"What the hell! Who was that!" asking a question he knew the answer to.

"Sousuke, and it doesn't look like he's going to make it."

"How the fuck did this happen! You're a fucking liar! You're lying to me! Sousuke would never be dumb enough to get shot! Now tell me, who the hell is it!?" Rin raved.

"Rin, it's Sousuke..."

"Goddamnit no it fucking isn't!" Rin began to cry and act violently, pounding on a squad car. "He can't die, he can't! He's going to be my best man, he isn't in that fucking ambulance! He isn't dying!" Rin slammed on the car and kicked it before breaking down completely, falling to the ground.

"I'm so sorry Rin but it doesn't look good." Kisumi said as Rin's sobs got louder.

Momo had tears streaming down his face when he went to check on Kaoru, who was staring wide eyed at his Uncle Rin.

"Uncle Momo, is Uncle Sousuke d-dead?"

"No, but he's hurt very badly, he may die." Momo said trying as hard as he could to wipe the tears off of his face, his eyes still glued to Rin's sobbing form on the ground. He would never get that image out of his head, cheerful and energetic Rin, sobbing and wailing in fetal position covering his face with his hands rocking back and forth.

Everything happened so fast, one second Momo was making duck jokes and the next Sousuke was laying on the ground of an abandon warehouse dying.

* * *

 

Makoto was sitting at his desk texting Haru about Rin's proposal, Haru had said something about Rin being called in for an urgent situation when an ambulance alert had come in.

 _'Patient coming in in approximately 1 minute, clean shot through the chest, vitals are bad, chance of survival is low, collapsed left lung. BP 90 over 50 dropping,_ '

Makoto felt a wave of sadness run through him, what if he can't save him? It was another thing Sousuke would have to hear about.

Makoto made his way to the emergency had to receive the patient and try to help on the way to the emergency room.

As soon as the patient came busting through on a gurney, everything started happening in slow motion. Makoto's eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw that it was Sousuke whom they were speaking about over the system.

"No." he spoke and tear filled his eyes. He ran into the operating room after they had entered.

He could not lose Sousuke. He would not lose Sousuke.

* * *

 

"Yamazaki's partner is here." A nurse walked in. "He's in terrible condition."

Makoto was trying to operate on Sousuke with tears in his eyes. "I can't find the source." he called trying to keep as calm as he could.

The machine began beeping faster, "Charge to 350, clear." another man spoke.

"We have to find the bleeder." Makoto argued.

"Pressure dropping, 68 over 43." Ryugazaki stated.

"He's bleeding to quickly!" another nurse spoke. The machine began beeping faster, then to one elongated beep.

"He's flat lining!" Ryugazaki called, Makoto was struggling to keep his composure.

"Clear!" Makoto yelled, "Charge. Clear! Charge, clear!" Makoto's voice was becoming frantic.

"Still nothing!" Ryugazaki called out

"Again! Clear!" Makoto yelled finally crying.

* * *

 

Rin was sitting in the hallway crying and biting his nails down as much as they could go.

Sousuke had been shot before, even stabbed, but it wasn't lethal. Rin had this feeling that wouldn't go away, this terrible, horrible thing just eating away at his stomach, he had puked at the scene upon seeing the huge mass of blood left were Sousuke had laid.

He had been there for 4 hours and Haru was coming soon with Gou, who was coming to meet Seijuuro and Kaoru.

Gou came running towards him minutes later.

"It was Sousuke?" Gou asked helplessly.

"Yeah. Gou, they don't think he's going to make it."

"Oh my god." Gou put her hand to her mouth and began to cry.

"If only I was there!" Rin screamed, throwing a fist at a whiteboard.

"Rin stop it! You we're proposing! You can't blame yourself."

Rin turned to Gou with a helpless look, "Gou," his voice was void of all hope. "That's our brother in there."

They both fell to pieces at that.

Gou hugged Rin until he told her that she should be with Seijuuro and Kaoru, be happy that he was okay. When Gou tentatively released he brother, they saw Haru waiting patiently.

Rin looked into Haru's eyes, he was nearly broken. Haru walked over and hugged Rin close to him. "It's okay to feel this way Rin."

"There's a hole in my chest Haru. He was finally happy with his life, he finally got Mako to. He finally stopped being such a grouch." Rin dryly attempted humor but began crying again.

"Don't talk about him like he's dead. He's not, not yet at least." Haru warned.

"Yamazaki Sousuke?" a monotone voice came.

"Yes?" Rin said hopefully.

"I came to talk about if you have considered organ donation,you are down as family."

Rin's face sunk completely. Haru felt his stomach drop. There was a long pause before Rin spoke weakly, "Is he... dead?" his voice broke with a small sob.

"Not yet."

"Oh no." Haru spoke, he knew Rin and he knew that this would get ugly fast. He turned to Rin who was red in the face with a murderous look.

"How dare you ask that kind of question! You don't know what's going to happen to him!"

"I suggest you leave now sir." Haru pushed, the man backing away at the request. "Rin, please calm down. Please."

"Rin, Haru." they heard, they turned around to Makoto.

"Makoto? You we're operating on Sousuke?"

"Yes." He said looking down

"Well?" Rin looked up with the last shred of hope he had left.

"He flat lined 3 times, he's alive but he's… he's in a coma." Makoto moved his hand to his mouth after he finished speaking and began to cry.

Rin still held on to the tiny bit of hope that he had left that Sousuke would wake up and hugged Makoto.

"You did what you could, he's not dead be proud of that." Rin said hugging Makoto tighter with every second passing.

Haru stepped back from them both as Makoto continued to cry. He saw tears start trailing their way down Rin's face and decided that he should go tell the Mikoshibas.

* * *

 

"Haruka! What's the news?" Gou asked the second Haru opened the door. Seijuuro looked up from playing with the children and Momotaro looked up from the corner of the room.

"He's alive…" Gou let out a deep breath while Seijuuro and the children smiled and Momotaru looked relieved, "But, he's in a coma."

Gou's eyes widened and she grasped her chest and Seijuuro bolted from his position on the bed to comfort his wife. Momotaro just looked down while the kids stared at Haru confusedly.

"What does that mean?" Kaoru asked toying with his IV.

"He's going to be asleep for a long time." Haru started, "But he may not wake up."

"Oh." Kaoru said and looked down.

* * *

 

"Tachibana-san?" Makoto broke from his hug with Rin to turn to his boss.

"Yes?"

"Come here, it will only take a second." Makoto walked over to the corner of the room with his boss.

"I understand you have a special relationship with Yamazaki-san."

"Yes, I do." "I'm going to give you a couple of weeks of then. I know that this must've taken a large emotional toll on you and I don't expect you to be recovered by tomorrow."

"Sir, with all due respect, I have scheduled surgeries within the next couple of weeks."

"Tachibana-san, I will call the patients or their parents and I will speak with the ones in the hospital about a different doctor or a postponement. You are not in mental or emotional condition to be working now."

"Alright, thank you."

"Alright, stay hopeful Tachibana-san."

"I will." With that Makoto left to sit with Rin again.

They had a bitter laugh about how even on his time off he'd still be in the hospital by Sousuke's side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I did put Sousuke in a coma.  
> I was going to have him die in the operating room originally when I was coming up with the story


	14. Coma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospital days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *IF YOU HAVENT READ CHAPTER 13 AS OF DECEMBER 1ST THE YOU WILL BE CONFUSED, REREAD THE REWRITTEN VERSION OF THE LAST CHAPTER*
> 
> I just didn't know how I would continue with how I ended the last chapter in a 'me' kind of way

It was 2 weeks later and Sousuke still hadn't woken up.

Makoto had stayed everyday until Haru forced him to go home at least 3 times so he could sleep. of course he didn't. He could only sleep when he was near Sousuke. He had to be near him. his thoughts were plagued with the thought of Sousuke's heart stopping when he wasn't there and he spent his nights lying in Sousuke's bed with one of his shirts close to his face, inhaling the scent, trying to sooth himself.

His boss still hadn't okay'd him to come back to work, he had been watching Makoto cry over Sousuke's unconscious body on a daily basis and he knew that Makoto wouldn't be able to work properly until Sousuke woke from his coma. He had told Makoto that he could take nursing shifts until he was able to return to work at his full potential.

Makoto needed to have Sousuke's warmth, his light breathing, and the constant beep of his heart monitor to sleep and keep himself sane.

Rin would visit when he wasn't on duty sometimes to find Makoto holding onto Sousuke's hand with his head resting on Sousuke's stomach fast asleep and he would sit in a chair further away And wait for Makoto to wake up. Rin could tell that Makoto was wearing Sousuke's shirts and it broke his heart every time Sousuke would stir a bit and Makoto would grip the shirt he was wearing tightly after Sousuke's eyes would fail to flutter open.

it was at the 4 week point when Rin's visits became more and more frequent and eventually turned into overnight stays that Haru forced the both of then to go to Makoto's house to get some sleep while he stayed with Sousuke.

Haru would curse Sousuke for hurting the 2 people he cared most about in the world so much pain and then tearfully ask him to wake up, a sight that Makoto would have burned into his mind when he came back to pick up the jacket he had left and to kiss Sousuke's forehead.

Rin and Makoto bothe slept on Sousuke's bed and talked about him.

Makoto ended up telling Rin how Sousuke had snaked his way into such an important position in his life and Rin scolded him before hugging Makoto as he feel asleep, staying up pondering why he couldn't have been there for Sousuke when he was shot.

Makoto had definitely looked to his razor more than once but he knew Sousuke would be angry with him if he so much as touched it, so he left it alone.

It was 5 weeks when Sousuke's heart monitor began flatlining while an exhausted Rin was sitting with him.

Makoto was doing his nurse's rounds when he heard Rin screaming for help. His heart nearly stopped, he ran into the room and checked Sousuke's pulse, confused-albeit relieved-that it was still there.

He looked around the room to see that Rin was standing on a cord. Rin had been drifting into sleep and accidentally ripped the plug to the heart monitor from its socket when his leg fell from its previous position.

Gou had been in multiple times whether it was with Seijuuro or just by herself and Momotaro hadn't dropped in at all but left 1000 paper cranes and flowers several times. Kisumi had come in a bunch of times and just spoke to Sousuke as if he was still awake. Rin had talked about his wedding and how Haru agreed to wait until something happened with Sousuke.

When it hit 2 months Makoto felt hopeless. Sousuke looked so frail, his cheeks sunken in and his arms skinny like noodles. He continued his routine of nurse's shifts and falling asleep on Sousuke with the ever present beeping going through his brain.

The beeping, it had been so melodic to him before, telling him that Sousuke was fine, but now it drove him crazy. He was sick of hearing it, he wanted it gone. He wanted Sousuke be rid of it, to be at home with him.

All he wanted was for Sousuke to wake up. He hoped that he would wake every time he laid a kiss on his face, but Makoto knew it wasn't a movie and how if Sousuke even did wake up, he probably wouldn't even be in the room with him.

He was starting to lose hope and his friends could tell. Rin would lay a hand on his shoulder and given him a solemn look, trying to urge him not to give up until it's really over.

That was when it hit 2 months and 1 week.

Makoto had been at home with Rin when he fell asleep due to exhaustion and he if dreamed that Sousuke died. He woke up screaming and thrashing. he was crying hysterically when Rin came into his room. He dreamed Haru called him and told him that Sousuke had passed but when Makoto replied with 'it's not serious I just had a nightmare' whilst crying, Rin expression softened. He told Makoto to try and calm down and that he had had them too.

Makoto spoke through endless tears, worrying about if Sousuke doesn't remember who he is, or, the more likely of the 2, that Sousuke would have post-traumatic stress. The more Makoto thought about it the more it made him cry. His heart would split in two if he heard Sousuke waking up and screaming in the middle of the night, if he would be triggered into an episode by something he did.

Most of all he was mortified that he would go into an episode after seeing Kaoru.

When he had told Rin this, he began to cry.

They laid there hopelessly until somehow they stopped crying. Rin spoke mechanically, telling Makoto he had to speak with Gou, and he got up and put his shoes on and left the house, leaving Makoto to wander over to Sousuke's drawer to pull out more of his clothes.

Rin had walked all the way to his sisters home.

Seijuuro opened the door and he asked where Gou was. Seijuuro asked concertedly if it was about Sousuke, to which Rin told him that it was but he was still in his coma.

Gou had been laying in bed sick. Rin entered his sister's and Seijuuro's bedroom and tapped her awake. She woke up in a panic, asking if Sousuke had woken up, if Sousuke had died. Rin dismissed all of these things but told her that he had something serious to talk about. He told her that Makoto had brought it to his attention that if Sousuke woke up, he would more likely than not have PTSD.

Rin was trying to keep it together around his now crying sister, to tell her that Kaoru could be a possible trigger as he was directly involved in Sousuke's traumatic experience.

He hugged his devastated sister close to himself and apologized for telling her this.

It was at the 2 months and 3 weeks mark when everybody gave up on Sousuke ever waking up.

Makoto didn't go home at that point, he basically lived at the hospital, eating across the street, getting coffee or tea in the lobby, working his nursing shifts, and sleeping with his head on Sousuke's stomach like he always had. he wondered to himself why this had to happen when they had finally realized they liked each other like that.

One thing Makoto knew now was that he loved Sousuke something terrible, he wouldn't tell him when he woke, only when he knew Sousuke loved him too, but he wasn't sure about that.

But the only thing he knew for certain was that if Sousuke died, he wouldn't be able to continue living on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp until next time, auf wiedersehen


	15. Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a lot of tears are shed on this particular day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> where the heck did all you guys go!!???  
> I miss your reviews and ideas!!  
> come back to me!!! :(

Sousuke's eyes rolled around in his head for a while before he opened his mouth and took a deep breath. He felt pressure on his stomach and he opened his eyes. He didn't know where he was and his heart rate picked up.

When he heard the a beeping noise that was increasing in speed he realized he was in the hospital. The room was dark and he looked out the window to see that it was night time.

He turned his attention to the eight on his midsection. He tried to prop himself up but there was a strong ache in his chest.

He remembered that he was shot. He started to sweat and his heart rate picked up again, his hands began twitching. His chest began to hurt more and he felt nauseous. He looked down to his stomach to see hair, brown hair, Makoto!

The pain in his chest had decreased as he focused on Makoto laying on him, holding his hand as he slept. His breathing slowed and his heart monitor steadied to a normal pace before he tried to speak.

He opened his mouth but all that came out were some scratchy noises. He looked around to find a glass of water sitting on a bedside table so he reached for it with his unoccupied hand and drank from the cup, spilling a bit on himself in the process. After that he tried to speak again.

"Ma-makoto? Makoto. Mako." Sousuke shook Makoto a bit with his free hand.

"Huh?" Makoto roused from his sleep and tightened his grip on Sousuke's hand. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked at Sousuke.

"Mako?"

Makoto dropped Sousuke's hand and covered his mouth "Sousuke?" Tears began forming in the corners of his eyes "Is this real?"

"Yeah, why are you-"

"I'm not dreaming!"

"Why would you-"

"Thank god!" Makoto lunged forward and hugged Sousuke tightly. He welcomed the hug but he was confused by Makoto's strange behavior. He was even mor confused by the fact Makoto was crying when he woke.

"Makoto, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Oh Sousuke, you've been in a coma for 3 months and 2 and a half weeks. I-I was beginning to think that you wouldn't wake up."

"C'mon, you can't get rid of me that easily."

"Please don't say that." Makoto rebutted quietly.

"I'm sorry. I'm not leaving anytime soon." Sousuke said before pulling Makoto,s head to kiss him.

"I love you Sousuke." Makoto said as quietly as possible, looking down.

"What?"

"I know you don't feel the same way, you've got 3 months missing from your life but I don't. And in those 3 months I've realized that I am in love with you. I don't want you to feel obligated to say something you don't mean for my sake."

Sousuke smiled and replied. "Thank you Makoto. I don't love you like that, not yet, but I will. I do care for you more than I care for most people though, even with 3 months missing, and I want you to know that."

Makoto smiled and stood up. "I'm um, I'm going to go call everyone and tell them that you woke up." He left the room in a hurry and Sousuke wondered if he accidentally hurt him.

* * *

Rin woke up to the buzzing of his phone at 3 AM. He hit the decline button before turning to go back to sleep, pulling Haru closer to himself.

How dare someone interrupt the only sleep he's gotten in a while.

When his phone started to ring again he grabbed it and answered angrily.

"What the hell, it's 3 in the morning!"

"Rin, it's Sousuke." Makoto sniffed, causing Rin's mind to jump to the worst conclusion before Makoto spoke again. "He's awake!"

"Oh my god! Alright, I'll tell Gou and then Haru and I will be right over!" Rin hung up after that and shook Haru senselessly until he woke up.

"What Rin?"

"Sousuke woke up!"

"Wow, that's great." Haru said sitting up, relief present on his face. He hugged Rin back when he lunged himself at Haru.

"I've gotta tell Gou, get dressed and we'll go."

"Okay."

Rin picked up his phone and dialed Gou's number and told her. She began crying and telling him how relieved she was and that she was on her way now.

Rin called Momotaro who answered immediately.

He knew that Momo felt responsible for Sousuke. Whether it was intuition or Sousuke's use of psychology in cases rubbing off on him, he could tell by the thousand paper cranes laying in the corner of Sousuke's room and the flowers that came in every week for the the entirety of Sousuke's stay at the hospital from Momo, even though he never once visited, that he blamed himself. The immediate answers of texts or calls at any time of night or day also tipped him off.

"Did he die?" Came from the line before Rin could even get his words out.

"The opposite, he woke up." He heard a heavy exhale and a few shaky breaths before speaking again. "I think that it's about time that you finally visit him."

Rin knew that Sousuke was the only person who could tell him that it wasn't his fault and have him believe.

"Yeah, I'll go head to the hospital now."

"Okay, I'll see you there Momotaro." With that he hung up and he and Haru left for the hospital.

When they arrived at the hospital Gou was exiting her car and ran up to them. They made there way up to the hospital room and saw Momotaro sitting on a chair outside the room. They said hello to each other and then looked into the window.

They're were nurses changing Sousuke's IV and checking machines and other things while Makoto sat with him, they were holding hands and talking to each other and laughing quietly, not once breaking eye contact.

When the nurses left the room Rin was about to enter they room to kill Sousuke for making him cry everyday for over 3 months when he remembered Momotaro was there.

"Momo, you first."

"But Rin,"

"No, you first, go on now. I want to see him some time today."

"Al-alright." Momo said slowly opening the door.

Rin shoved Momo into the room causing Sousuke and Makoto to look up at him. Momo stared at Sousuke for a bit before looking down again. Makoto smiled at him and stood from his chair, kissing Sousuke's forehead and letting go of his hands. He pushed Momotaro into the chair he had just been seated in and exited the room. He, like Rin, could tell Momo blamed himself for not being there to back Sousuke up when he was shot.

Momo starmed at the ground for a long while before speaking.

"I'm sorry Yamazaki."

"Sorry for what?"

"If I had gone with you then this wouldn't have happened!"

"If you had gone with me you would have been disobeying my order to call Kisumi. I would have been shot if you came anyway. Kaoru saw me and screamed my my name, if you were behind me he would have shot you too. Makoto told me you killed him?"

"Yes I did but-"

"Good. You saved Kaoru's life."

"But you-"

"It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you, don't blame yourself Mikoshiba."

Momo and he looked like he was going to burst, and that was what he did, he burst out in tears and then bowed to Sousuke. "Thank you, Yamazaki!"

"Shhh, calm down and be quiet. I just woke up not even an hour ago."

"S-sorry. I'll go now. Thank you Yamazaki." He said exiting as soon as he could.

Or at least he tried to but was knocked to the grounf when Rin came charging in on sight of the door open. Gou could be heard yelling 'Rin calm down!'

Sousuke didn't know what he was expecting Rin to do when he came in but it wasn't the sucker punch to the face that he got.

"I swear to god if you ever do that to me again Sousuke I'll kill you myself!" Sousuke didn't react to Rin at all, just gave him a blank stare waiting for him to finish. "You scared me half to death man," Rin's voice rose in pitch, anyone he knew him could tell he was crying. "You can't leave me, you know I'd be lost without you."

That was when Sousuke began crying. "I know."

They then gave each other the best bro-hug of a life time.

"I proposed you know."

"When?"

Rin laughed bitterly, "The night you were shot."

"Oh."

"Had to postpone wedding perpetrations because of you, ya giant dick." Rin joked

"Sorry."

"I think Gou really wants to see you now." Rin said, turning to walk out of the room, Gou walked in before he was out of the room, scolding Rin, probably for punching Sousuke in the face.

She sat down on the side of the bed, cusping Sousuke's face where Rin had punched him.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry for that idiot! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Gou."

"Okay good. I'me sending Seijuuro over tomorrow and you know that that means Kisumi is probably coming over as well."

"A natural assumption."

"Makoto told me that he' staking Rin to go get there first non-guilt ridden meal as soon as he came out so you can get some rest for a while before Rin comes in and bothers you."

"He'll probably tell me that 'I was sleeping for over 3 months you don't need anymore sleep'."

"You know him so well." Gou laughed, she stood up and the kisses Sousuke on the cheek and walked out of the room.

Haru walked in a couple of minutes later.

"Nanase."

"I'm going to call you Sousuke-san now and you are going to call me Haruka."

"Fine but you'll drop the honorfic from my name as well."

"Deal."

"Makoto told me that even you cried."

"I did, in spite of myself. Now look, I know your just out of a coma but you're going to see him tomorrow when Seijuuro comes so I need to make sure of something."

"What?"

Haru pulled his phone out of his pocket and began scrolling through pictures and finally showed him one. It was of Rin and Kaoru.

Sousuke's eyes widened and he began sweating again, his toes and fingers started to go numb and his heart monitor started beeping erratically, showing his increasing heart rate.

_Uncle Sousuke help!_

_Takada turned around and whipped around and ripped a gun out and shot Sousuke through the chest._

Sousuke's breathing quickened like he had just ran 2 miles as fast as he could. Haru yelled at him and slapped him right where Rin had punched him. "Snap out of it!"

Sousuke looked at Haru and continued acting erratically, heart monitor still beeping like crazy.

"Sousuke, look at me, breathe slowly, calm down. You're with Makoto right now, you're lying in bed with him watching him sleep."

Sousuke stared at Haru and focused on what he said. His heart slowly stopped racing and his breathing became normal.

"I'll tell Seijuuro not to bring the kids tomorrow."

"This is going to kill Gou." Sousuke said to himself. Haru placed a hand on Sousuke's shoulder.

"We won't tell her, not yet. We'll get you a therapist to help you deal with this."

"Yeah, please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys review for me!!!!!  
> \-------------------------  
> If you don't know what happened with Sousuke when he woke up and remembered that he had been shot, and when he saw Kaoru's picture, the answer is that he was having a panic attack
> 
> thinking of what happened caused one but when he focused on Makoto, it calmed him down.
> 
> Kaoru is a trigger for him. Seeing Kaoru triggered him to relive being shot and almost dying... Sousuke is experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder aka PTSD.
> 
> see you guys next chapter, please share this and review!
> 
> ((seriously guys review, I need some inspiration from you!/also did the title of the chapter scare you initially?))


	16. Mental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke speaks to his psychiatrist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been like a whole year and i apologize so much, i had such bad writers block and then i have been extremely busy, if you guys are (hopefully) still there i'm sorry for making you wait this long for an update

“Do you remember exactly what happened?”

  
“...”

  
The room was hot, he was sweating and he wanted to go back home. The smell of hospital was nauseating and he’d been inhaling it for a good 4 months apparently.

 

_“Yamazaki Sousuke.”_

_  
It was 8:36, Makoto had stopped in for half an hour before he had to go for his scheduled surgery at 6. The hospital had relieved him of his duties as a trauma surgeon due to his last negative experience while operating, he was deemed ‘mentally unfit’ to experience another loss. He would be allowed to return to the trauma room after being declared stable by a psychologist._

_  
“Are you letting me go home?” he knew that answer to that question, asking it in spite of himself._

_  
“No, you are aware that we need to monitor you for a few more days. We have been informed by one of your friends that you may be experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since it was noted that you have had at least 3 panic attacks since you woke yesterday morning, we are having our resident psychiatrist come for a diagnosis in a few hours.”_

_  
Pfft, he knew that he had PTSD, he could go to a doctor on his own time._

 

“Yamazaki-san? Can you tell me what happened to you that put you in your current position?”

  
He wanted to go home.

  
“I was shot.” his curt response came.

  
“Can you describe the details?”

  
“A sick child killer shot me and I nearly died.” the heart rate monitor began blinking slightly faster and Sousuke’s palms grew sweaty.

  
“Details Yamazaki-san, you can tell me everything.”

  
“...” Sousuke felt horrible, he felt like he had bed sores, the room is hot, his hands were clammy and his chest was constricting. “My best friend's nephew, he had him. I almost had the man but he yelled my name, I wasn’t-I wasn’t fast enough. He shot me twice. Once in the shoulder and once in the chest.”

  
It was becoming very hard to breathe, he broke into a cold sweat, facial features twisted trying to remember how to inhale and exhale. His chest burned and he began to feel itchy where his stitches were. His heart rate monitor was beeping like a bomb about to go off, he tried to calm down when he remember he was being observed.

  
“I should have died but Mako, he didn’t give up on me.”

  
“Who is Mako?” the psychiatrist questioned, the heart monitor had slowed ever so slightly.

  
“Makoto Tachibana.”

  
“The Trauma Surgeon?”

  
“Former.”

  
“You called him Mako, how do you know him so well?”

  
“I live with him, he’s my boyfriend.” Sousuke looked at the woman to see if she had shown any sign of disgust, she didn’t. He assumed to be able to analyze someone else’s mind you would have to have a clear mind that didn’t judge others.

  
“How does ‘Mako’ make you feel?” she jotted more down on her book before looking back up.

  
He was at a loss for words, how did Makoto make him feel?

  
“Are you not comf-”

  
“Happy. Excited, nervous.”

_ the heart rate monitor has returned to normal after speaking of Tachibana Makoto, he seems to calm at the mention of the name being in his presence probably calms him more significantly _

“He operated on you?”

  
“Yeah, he saved me.”

  
“Is your friend's nephew okay? Was he injured.”

  
“He’s alive.” the response was notedly short compared to speaking of Makoto.

  
“Your friend mentioned you were uncomfortable while speaking of him. How does this make you feel?” the woman held a picture of Kaoru up for him to see.  
Sousuke’s head hurt, he knew he was being triggered by seeing or talking about Kaoru, he saw this as pointless pain. He just wanted to be able to see the kid and not have an anxiety attack.

  
“Please put that down,” he diverted his eyes from the picture. “Haru and I already came to the conclusion that he is a trigger for me. This is overkill.”

  
“My apologies. You seem to be aware of your mental state.”

  
“I was a psychology student.”

  
“Then we should talk about something else, yes?”  
Sousuke grunted in response. More than anything he wanted to go home and eat real food.

  
“Besides being shot in the chest,” she hesitated and glanced at the heart monitor to see if the event itself being mention had caused him any anxiety, the monitor remained the same. “You said you had been shot in the shoulder first. What became of that?”

  
“The bullet ricocheted off of my collar bone and tore through my rotator cuff before getting lodged inside of it. I have surgery tomorrow to repair it.”

  
“Are you worried about it?”

  
“No. I have had my shoulder operated on before.”

  
“The same shoulder? What had happened the first time?”

  
“Yes. I had over used it in swimming. I wore down the socket and had to have artificial ligaments put in.”

  
“Do you think that the new injury to your bad shoulder adds stress to being shot?”

  
“No, I’m just not looking forward to the recovery. Kaoru is the only problem with my stress.”

  
“How do you figure that?”

  
“When I think about what happened, I hear him screaming, I feel the fear in his brain. Not only was he in danger of being stabbed to death he saw someone close to him almost bleed out in front of him. He’s old enough to grasp what being shot in the sm hest entails. The only thing I can think about is him screaming the first time I had been shot, and the second time, that was the last thing I heard before I blacked out. The first thing I asked Mako was if he was alright.”  
She was writing furiously on her pad, there was nothing else for her to ask on the matter, Sousuke had a great perception of the human mind and was aware of his problem. She made him focus on Makoto to calm him down before finishing up.

  
“One more question and we’re done. Do you wish to return to work?”

  
“110%.”

  
“I will see you after your surgery.”

  
“Thank you for your time.”

* * *

 

Makoto came back to his room at about 9:30pm.

“How was your day?” he asked Sousuke with a smile.

  
“Rin visited. He brought me actual good food that Haruka made. He asked how my day was and why they made him wait 20 minutes to come into the room. He had also asked when I would recover from surgery so he could finally plan his wedding out.” Sousuke could never be more grateful for Haruka, about making him edible food. Beside keeping both Rin and Makoto sane and healthy during his coma however.

  
“What time is your procedure tomorrow?”

  
“Noon. Is tomorrow Saturday?”

  
“Yeah, I have surgery all day, I’ll be back by the time you really wake up.”

  
“I think you should go home now.” Sousuke would love to have Makoto with him every time that he could but with sleeping in a chair as much as he had, his back had to be hurting and he couldn’t have been getting the correct amount of sleep. “Really, you should be getting proper rest.”

  
“Are you sure?”

  
“Yes, especially with your last few months.”

  
“Okay, I’ll come in before you leave for surgery.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of dialogue, a review would be reassuring :) until next time


	17. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke goes home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess the new year is just fueling my inspiration!!

Sousuke hadn’t slept very well. He was stuck thinking about how long the recovery is going to be. He’d never been injured this badly before, he’d never suffered mentally because of work either.

“Sousuke?” his head snapped up, Makoto was standing next to him, his jacket was already off and he was taking his hat off. “Are you okay? Why is your bed upright, you don’t have surgery for another hour.”

“I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Why not?” Sousuke looked at Makoto and looked down, “You can tell me.” Makoto urged.

“It takes so long to recover, I can’t go back to work until I’m not clinically insane. I’ll be able to do desk work but that’s it, I can’t even go back to desk work because I can’t use my arm to write.”

“I’m sorry, but be glad that you are here. I know it’s hard but you have Rin, you have me. We love you and anything you need we would try our hardest for. None of us would be able to live with ourselves if you hadn’t pulled through. To be 100% honest with you I probably wouldn’t still be here, I would have felt to guilty.”

“Makoto…” he didn’t what to say. He took Makoto’s hand before speaking again. “Makoto, I was out for such a long time. Please tell me the truth, did you cut yourself?”

“No, I didn’t. I thought about it sometimes but I never did. I just couldn’t do it to you, it wasn’t fair. I guess I figured if I did do it you would never wake up.” Sousuke put his hand up to the side of Makoto’s face, rubbing his thumb across his cheek, his eyes watering a bit. “And you woke up!”

He started to laugh and cry, he never really had any time to cry about what had happened.

“Makoto don’t cry.”

“I’m just so happy!” Sousuke wiped the tears from his eyes before leaning over and kissing him.

Makotos hands found their way to the sides of Sousuke’s face. Sousuke recalled that they had only kissed once and it was an outcome of him not being able to control himself properly. He felt Makoto’s smile against his mouth, Makoto was right, he had to be thankful for the people he had that cared about him. Sousuke moved his good hand to the back of Makoto’s neck as Makoto moved from the chair to the edge of the hospital bed.

“Gross! Get a room you two!” Rin. Makoto had never moved faster, he almost shot through the roof and into the room above his. He was the color of a tomato.

“We do have a room that you walked into.” Sousuke replied in deadpan.

“Well whatever, I just came in to tell you that I’m gonna wait for you while you’re in surgery.” Rin left with that to probably get some coffee.

“Are you okay Mako?”

“...” he was still bright red, Sousuke was trying to find it in himself not to laugh at him. “I need to go prep, I’ll stop by at the end if my shift. You get to come home tomorrow!”

“Looking forward to seeing you.”

They had put he anestia in his IV at 8, he woke up around 12:30.

“Hey Sousuke, how are ya feelin?” Rin asked him, in return Sousuke grumbled. He was out of it and everything was fuzzy, he had just fallen back asleep.

He woke up to Makoto holding his hand. “Wha time is now?” he was still so tired, he couldn’t think straight.

“It’s 2 am.”

“Mmm why are you not home?”

“I wanted to be here with you.” he yawned.

“Thank you.” Makoto smiled and scooted his chair as close to the bed as he could and rested his head on the bed, Sousuke stroked his head until they both fell asleep.

* * *

He was allowed to leave the next morning, Rin had to help him change out of his hospital gown into his clothes. He kept groaning for Makoto whom he made go home before they gave him more pain medicine to make him act like a 3 year old again. Rin was telling him to be quiet and to stop whining and he smacked him while he pulled his sweatpants up.

When Rin got him home Makoto had set up a little spot for him on the couch so he could sleep upright to avoid hurting his shoulder.  
The first week of anything was always rough, including surgery recovery. It was hard when he was 17, it would be hard now that he’s 28. It would be several months of feeling completely useless accompanied by physical therapy. He would need help getting dressed and putting his brace on, Makoto would have to get him food for a while, he basically would become a vegetable on the couch until he was able to feel his hand.

He played with his stitches in the shower, running his fingers from his shoulder, over his collarbone and then to the scar on his chest. He held his hand there for a while, he had lost a lot of weight, his body wasn’t as muscular as it had been and you could see his ribcage, his face was sunken in. He looked old, his hair was around the same length as Haruka’s and he had a short beard. He was looking forward to his trip to the barbers.

He got out of the shower and called for Makoto after drying himself as best as he could and putting his boxers on. He entered the bathroom and grabbed Sousuke’s shorts pulled them up his body, when he grabbed the shirt his he froze, staring at the incision he had made several months ago. He reached out and touched it, running his fingers down the vertical. Sousuke shuddered when Makoto’s cold fingers touched his chest. His eyes traveled Sousuke’s now thin body, looking at all the scars he had acquired over his lifetime. He was focused on the stab wound he had gotten a few years back before looking across the array of gunshot wounds that littered his torso and limbs. The scar on his neck was what kept his attention, he had gotten it on Haruka's case. Makoto’s hand trailed from his chest to the scar on his neck, that was the first time he nearly died. He smoothed his finger over the scar and then brought his mouth to it, kissing it.

For the first time in a long time Sousuke felt insecure about his damaged skin. He had never in his life had a more intimate encounter and it was thrilling but terrifying at the same time.

He took his left hand to the back of Makoto’s head and they just looked at each other before Makoto leaned in to kiss him. His arm was beginning to hurt from just hanging there without a brace on but with the way Makoto was kissing him he couldn’t pay less attention to it. He backed Makoto up to the ledge of the sink and Makoto’s hands found their way into his mop of hair. He moved so he was sitting on the counter and opened his mouth to let Sousuke in. Sousuke began to move his mouth down his chin and onto his neck. They started to kiss again and Makoto moaned into his mouth before starting to push Sousuke away from him.

Sousuke put up a slight protest before letting Makoto pull away. He gave Makoto a look as he slid off of the sink.

“You’re shoulder. You need to be in your sling.” Makoto was focused on getting his shirt on him without hurting him, his face was still flushed and he looked embarrassed. Their pants were both feeling a bit tighter than before.

* * *

Sousuke had just finished his session with his psychiatrist, he and Makoto were going to get lunch and then getting Sousuke’s hair cut. Makoto has had Sousuke’s hair gelled back out of his face like most men were wearing it now.

Sousuke was trying to work the chopsticks with his left hand when Makoto called his name, when he had looked up Makoto took a picture of him. Sousuke grumbled before trying to use his chopsticks again.

“Your hair looks so cute and your beard is too, I’m going to miss it.” Makoto sighed.

“I’m sure as hell not, it’s itchy and my hair gets into my eyes when you don’t put it back. I don’t know how any of you deal with it, Rin especially.”

“Ugh, I know you hate it. So I had to get a picture, look how cute you are!” he squealed.

They finished up and Makoto took Sousuke to the barbers, walking to the grocery store across the street.

“What do you want to do with it today?”

“Shave everything off, buzz my hair.”

“Alright Yamazaki-san.”

When Makoto came back Sousuke was using the bathroom, the blush on Makoto’s face was quite large when he caught sight of Sousuke.

“What d’ya think?” Sousuke asked as they left.

“You look amazing anyway you have your hair apparently.”

Sousuke laughed as Makoto opened his car door for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ill probably update after i get a few more comments


	18. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 months of recovery and therapy for Sousuke has been difficult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyyy guyyss, so before you read this chapter i just wanted to say that I'm thinking about writing a prequel to this story. I had said in one of the first few chapters that Rin and Haru had met on a case where Rin had to serve as Haru's protector after someone had tried to kill him so I was thinking I would write that story??? What do you guys think about that??
> 
> anyways, enjoy!

Sousuke was really trying, for Makoto, to be happy.

It had been about 2 months, he was going to therapy for both his PTSD and his shoulder. His shoulder was healing and rehabilitation was going great for him, but his PTSD wasn’t. 

In the whole time that he had been going to therapy he was only able to think of Kaoru, the second a picture of him had been pulled out he would start to have a panic attack. He could hardly breathe, hearing the sound of his name being screeched as he fell to the ground.

He went back to desk work at the station, his arm now free of it’s sling. His days were short, Rin had been temporarily assigned a new partner while he would be out. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t work because his mind had finally decided that this time it was finally going to collapse on him and take his passion from him. 

When Makoto was at work he would sit on his bed and cry for hours, the realisation that he may never be able to go back to work had sunken into his mind. He had looked at Makoto’s razor on occasion, he really considered hurting himself, ending it all. But that would be insanely hypocritical of him, he would break Makoto’s heart, Rin would never forgive him; so he left it alone.

He had been alone a lot, Makoto had work as did Rin, and when Rin didn’t have work he had Haruka and a wedding to plan. 

It was in 2 months, he only had 2 months for his mind to heal itself or he couldn’t go.

He had taken another shower. He didn’t require Makoto to put his clothes on for him anymore, every time he had put his clothes on they would kiss before Makoto pushed him away, deeming him to delicate to be able to keep going.

It was around 6pm when he got out of the shower, he stood in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror. His face looked empty. He felt empty. He felt worthless. A tear escaped his eye, he hated this. He hated feeling powerless and pathetic, he hated that he couldn’t just live his life and he hated that he couldn’t be around his godson. 

He hated himself.

He had collapsed on the floor, his tears flowing down his red tinted cheeks. He was sobbing uncontrollably. His wails broke through the silence of the house, ‘I hate myself’ left his mouth several times before his sobs wracked his body again. He truly had never felt this way before, he had never wanted to due before, part of him wishing that he had never woke up, that he had died before the EMT’s got to him or in the ambulance into the hospital. The amount of self hate he was suffering was hitting him harder than it ever had.

His cries were loud, muted yells left his mouth as he covered his mouth. He didn’t understand why he was losing himself so badly in that moment. 

“Sousuke! Sousuke oh my god!” he hadn’t heard Makoto enter the house on account of his violent crying. He couldn’t stop sobbing, looking up at Makoto through his tears, his vision was blurry but he could see Mako’s worry and that he too was about to start crying. He tried so hard to stop; he really did but he just couldn’t.

Makoto dropped himself to the ground to hold Sousuke, keeping him from rocking back and forth in fetal position as he had been. 

“Sou what’s wrong? Please be okay, I need you to calm down.” Sousuke hadn’t stopped yelling, he couldn’t believe he had let Makoto see him like this. His fingers dug into Makoto’s arms, they would probably leave bruises. “Sousuke! Please calm down you’re scaring me! What happened?”

“I just hate myself.” Sousuke choked between sobs. Makoto thought Sousuke could hear his heart shatter completely.

“You what?”

It took several minutes for Sousuke to calm down.

“Makoto I’m sorry you had to see that, it isn’t going to happen again.”

“How long have you been crying while I’m at work?” Sousuke just looked to Makoto, “Sousuke, how long?”

“Several weeks.”

“You hate yourself?” Makoto had started to cry, whimpering out his question.

“I shouldn’t have let you see me like that.”

“Goddamnit Sousuke! You aren’t made of steel!” Makoto raised his voice to an angry yell, “You have feelings and I know this! I can’t believe you hid this from me!”

“Makoto it’s bothersome, you-”

“No it is not! You think that after you find out that I cut myself when someone dies on my table and care so much that you make it your  _ job  _ to make sure that I am okay and that I don’t do it again, that anything you may feel isn’t my concern? Or that it would bother me? That’s complete bullshit! Sousuke you hardly knew me and cared so much about how I felt and my mental and physical health, why would i not care the same way you did when I am in love with you?” 

Makoto was crying furiously and Sousuke was still fighting back sobs.

“I just don’t understand! Why, after everything that I have been through, does this have to be the thing that takes my sanity away from me? I’ve been shot, I’ve been stabbed, I've been held hostage, I've been tortured for days, I’ve had my jugular cut, I have almost died so many times so why is this what gets to ruin me!?”

Makoto didn’t speak, he didn’t know what to say. He was just shocked. Sousuke had never exposed so much of himself, he was amazed how Sousuke hadn’t already had a breakdown before. He was shot in the neck, he had been tortured? He hoped that Sousuke wouldn’t mistake his silence as being bothered by this confession, he could never not care about Sousuke especially after how selfless he was in regard to caring for him.

“Oh Sousuke,” he kissed him on the forehead before he turned him to cry into his chest. He held him like that for over an hour before his sobbing had quit, he was shaking slightly in Makoto’s arms and sniffling.

“Did you tell your therapist that? Does she know that you’re hurting this badly?” Makoto wasn’t knowledgeable on how to comfort someone like this, he didn’t share the same experiences as Sousuke or know the mind and how it work as well as he did, but he was doing his best.

“No. I didn’t, she doesn’t.”

“You need to tell her how depressed you are, if you tell her about this maybe she could figure something out.”

“I should be able to figure it out! I know how the mind works! I’m so inadequate that I just can’t.”

“Sousuke, this is crazy! I could never go through one of the things you’ve been through and come out as you have. You’ve endured more physical pain then most all of the people I’ve known! You’ve almost bled out, I don’t know, twice? Been stabbed, been shot, and tortured? Who knows that besides your co-workers? I have never, in all my years, seen someone as scarred up and damaged as much as you but you kept going! If you think you’re inadequate because you were almost murdered and had no idea of what happened to Kaoru then you are right, who wouldn’t be inadequate after that? I don’t know how you survived mentally with all this build up of horrible things that have happened to you, I sure as hell wouldn’t have. You have no right to hate yourself because of something you can’t control, and that’s basically what you had said to me when I was at my lowest.” 

Sousuke stared at Makoto, he was absolutely speechless. He was such a hypocrite, and he was hurting the most caring person that he had ever known in his life. He put his hand on the back of Makoto’s neck.

Flashing in his mind was Makoto cutting himself, Makoto yelling at him for not getting any sleep when he had stayed over to make sure he was okay, the smile on his face when he told Sousuke that he could move in with him, the heavy blush on his face when they had ran into each other and fallen on the floor when he had just moved in, the beaming smile when Sousuke asked him if he wanted to go to dinner, the funny feeling Makoto gave him when he got drunk and tried to sleep with Sousuke, the utmost adorable reaction when he had seen that his nurse was on a date with one of his patience and his love for romance, the feeling he would get when Rin would tease him about being Makoto’s boyfriend, the intense fear of rejection when he was going to ask Makoto out and when they fell asleep on the couch together. The nearly paralyzing fear he had felt the second that Makoto had ran from the front door to the bathroom after getting back home from his trauma shift. When he had called Makoto out of work and they had stayed home all day doing whatever made Makoto feel better. How he felt when he kissed Makoto out of nowhere for the first time, how he felt when he and Makoto made it official. Before he lost consciousness when he was shot that Makoto’s smiling face was the last thing he could visualize. The complete shock on Makoto’s teary face when he had woken up from his coma, telling Sousuke that he was in love with him and that he understood if their feelings for each other were different. 

Makoto had been his rock after he had surgery, he cared so much for him. He was his person.

One more time he thought of Makoto running his hands across his scars and wounds, careful not to hurt him, the adoration in his eyes before he leaned in to kiss the scar on his neck. 

“Makoto,” he had started to cry once more.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**“I love you.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was probably the most emotional chapter i have ever written, wouldn't you say? I really had to think back to how depressed I was when I had my shoulder surgery and amplified it with Sousuke's PTSD. I'm actually pretty happy with how this chapter turned out so I'd like to see what you guys thought about it!!  
> I think that this fic is coming to a close soon


End file.
